The Catastrophe of War
by Link McCloud
Summary: DEAD Set after the events of Adventures, Krystal joins the Star Fox team and learns what it takes to be a member. After Assault, the team returns to Sauria to battle the Krazoa Spirit's brother, the Krezoa. Rated T.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Fox. Star Fox is owned by Nintendo. Meaning none of the characters in this story is owned by me. Even though a small part of the story line of this fanfic is mine, most of the credit goes to Nintendo.**

**Note: This is my first fanfiction, so bare with me on mistakes.**

The Catastrophe of War

Prologue

Krystal looked upwards and watched the strange air fighter vanish into the vortex in the sky, her staff smoking at its tip. She couldn't believe the powerful fire blasts from this staff didn't even make the smallest burn mark on the Krazoa head. She growled at her failure to stop the 'Krazoa God' then shortened the staff and hooked it on her back.

After it was firmly on her back, the vixen wiped off the water on her bangs for a better view of the fighter vanishing in the stormy sky. The pilot of the air fighter, another vulpine, saved her just a few minutes ago. Krystal had seen him now and then when she was trapped in the crystal prison, gazing up at her, but unfortunately, when she was in her prison, Krystal could not hear what the vulpine was thinking. Even now, she could not listen to what the fox was thinking, as a powerful being was blocking her telepathic powers. She thought what would happen if he didn't stop the 'Krazoa God'...

She snapped herself out of her thoughts; the vulpine can and will defeat the floating entity...but if the vulpine would need a hand, she could be there to lend one. Krystal redirected her vision to the roof of the palace and looked around. The heavy rain and thunder was starting to end as she scanned the roof of the palace so she could see the roof more clearly than before. She spotted a hole in the floor and she walked off of the platform and jogged over to to the hole. It seemed that something in this hole was sucking air and raindrops down into the interior of the palace.

Before Krystal jumped into the hole, she looked backwards, towards where she was held captive for a week. Broken metal and shards of crystal littered the area. She sighed, glad that she was free and jumped into the hole. Krystal gasped as she fell 25 feet onto an air ventilation system; it was sucking air downwards, which made the vixen fall twice as fast, and she dropped to one knee with a grunt due to the force of her landing.

Krystal raised her head and looked in front of her. The interior of the palace was shining with a bright glow because of the sun light pouring into the palace from the hole in the middle of the ceiling. The vixen's eyes adjusted to the light and widened in surprise. In the middle of a huge cylinder like area in the middle of the room, on top of another fan, sat a ship.

'_Hmmm...'_ thought Krystal, '_This ship looks just like the one I saw taking the Earthwalker prince the first day I was here...maybe I can borrow it for a while..._'

She got back onto both legs and ran over to the direction of the ship. However, as she came up to the edge of the walkway warping around the cylinder room, she noticed a gap between her and the fan.

'_Crap..._' the vixen thought as she skidded to a halt, almost falling over the edge to a 200 plus foot drop.

She looked around quickly. '_I need to find something to aid me to reach that ship. There is no way I am able to jump over there!' _She peered over the edge of the walkway and looked down at the drop in front of her; she jumped back a second later.

'_Yeah...there is no way I would jump that. I would get hurt pretty badly if I couldn't reach that fan..._'

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a faint sparkle of light. Krystal turned her head and smiled with relief when she saw a staff boost pad on the ground. She walked over to it and put her staff into the hole in the middle of the pad. Her staff started to vibrate and it shot a large amount of energy, making it fly upwards, Krystal holding on tight. But, there was not enough angle to the pad so she just shot straight up. She did her best to maneuver herself over to the fan but it was no use; Krystal plummeted back to the tiled floor.

As she landed, with yet another grunt, she thought what she could do to get over to the fan. She walked over to the pad again. Krystal looked down at it and over to a pillar a few yards away. There was a few feet of tile in front of it... Then it came to her. She stuck the end of the staff under the pad and pushed down on the staff. The pad popped up, and the vixen grabbed it. She walked over to the pillar and leaned the pad against the pillar. Once again, she stuck her staff in the hole and fired the boost. It worked like a charm. With the angle of the pad, she was able to fly over to the fan in an arc. As Krystal landed on the fan, she noticed that it was off and wondered why, but demised the thought. She walked over to the ship and got in it.

'_Ugh..._' It smelled like Sharpclaw.

Krystal noticed there was only one room in the ship, so it was easy for her to find the flight controls. She quickly spotted them and walked over to the controls then turned on the ignition. The engines purred and the ship floated a few feet off the fan. The vixen pointed the ship towards the hole in the ceiling and fired the engines. The Sharpclaw ship shot straight up; so fast in fact, the vixen gasped because she almost crashed into the ceiling of the palace, as her aim on the hole was a bit off. As a startled Krystal got outside,she had to maneuver it around the cage-like structure on top of the palace to get a clear view of the clearing sky. She fired the boosters and went out to space. As she flew past Cloudrunners, who shrieked in surprise and quickly moved out of Krystal's way, clouds and the clear sky above the clouds, she prayed that the battle with the vulpine and the 'Krazoa God' was going well.

As she got into the blackness of space, she noticed that the 'Krazoa God' was Andross. A flash of anger went through her body. It was Andross that pushed her into that crystal prison in the first place. It was Andross that assisted in the destruction of Krystal's home planet. Even since, she wanted revenge on that monkey. But as she looked up at the huge head she got scared for a split second, making her body unable to move toward the fight.

While she was struggling with the decision to fight or not, Krystal noticed that the monkey head exploded and two ships flew away from the explosion and saw that the planet was coming back together. She smiled at the fact that peace was going to return to the planet and noticed that one of the two fighters, as she identified as 'Arwings', was flying back towards a command ship, with the words 'Star Fox' painted on its hull with a red logo that showed a fox and what seemed to be another tail coming out of it's spine. The other Arwing was floating in place for a minute or two while the planet came back together, then, after that, it flew back to the planet. Krystal sensed it was the vulpine. She smirked and flew over to the Star Fox ship, thinking when the vulpine got back, she would surprise him and say "thank you".


	2. Chapter 1

**Disclamer: Yet again, I don't own Star Fox. Nintendo made it, therefor, Nintendo owns it.**

The Catastrophe of War

Chapter 1

15 minutes later, Fox McCloud was back on the Great Fox and was in his room typing a report for General Pepper. For some reason, the communication systems were down and Fox couldn't think of any other way to contact Corneria about Sauria.So he decided to make a report and send it to the General via s-e-mail. "...successfully completed the task of restoring Sauria; returning to Corneria as soon as possible..." said Fox as he typed the words on the computer. In front of him, over the computer, outside of a window that peers out into space, a Sharpclaw ship flew by silently. Fox, who could have seen the ship if he looked up, didn't notice it; however, he was just staring at the word 'vixen' on his report and his thoughts drifted. "Grrrr...Why can't I get her out of my head?" he groaned as he rubbed his head furiously.

'Her' is referring to the 19 year old, blue furred vixen named Krystal. Once Fox had gathered all the Krazoa spirits, as the 1st Krazoa spirit asked him to on the Moon Mountain Pass on Sauria, he released them back at the palace. This act lead to the use of Krystal to revive Andross, and this drained the vixen so she couldn't stop herself from falling down the hole in the ceiling of the palace. Fox had caught her, therefor saving her life from the deadly fall. As Fox pulled Krystal up on to the roof, they looked into each other's eyes for a second or two and stepped apart. They heard aloud laughing behind them and turned to face Andross, who was disguised as a Krazoa head.

As she pulled herself to a standing position, Krystal noticed that her staff was not destroyed, but on Fox's back. She had seized it, and, ignoring Fox's protests, started firing powerful fire blasts at the floating Krazoa head, but to no effect. Fox sighed, shook his head, ran over to his Arwing and followed Andross to outer space. A battle ensued and Fox, with the help of Falco, who returned at the perfect time, destroyed the monkey head yet again in a grand explosion. After Fox and Falco fled the explosion, Falco flew back to the Great Fox, but Fox lingered to see the planet come back together. After the 'moons' of Sauria landed safely back on the surface of the planet, Fox flew back down to Krazoa Palace to see if Krystal was still there. But he was lead to be disappointed. A large crowd of Sharpclaws seemed to be celebrating their freedom from General Scales, but the vixen was not there. So a crestfallen Fox flew back to his command ship.

Fox pulled himself out of his thoughts and finished his report. "...Leader of the Star Fox team, Fox McCloud." he muttered has he typed the last line, the fur on top of his head ruffled.

As soon as he finished, ROB's mechanical voice sounded in Fox's room. "Fox, someone is here to see you and she requests you to come down to the bridge as soon as possible."

"Ok ROB, I'll be right there." said Fox.

'_Who could that be? We are at the edge of the Lylat System...who would want to see me? I doubt its the Queen Earthwalker._' he thought as he saved his report, put the computer on standby and walked out of his room, turning off the dimmed lights as he did.

On his way down the hallway, he walked by the hangar. At first, he ignored it, as he usually does, but has he was about to walk out of view of the hangar, he paused and looked back inside, as something caught his eye. A Sharpclaw ship was sitting on the platform, it's hull marked with battle scars. Fox ran over to it and while doing so, he pulled out his blaster. He jumped on top of it, pointed the blaster in the hatch and peered into the control room, which was the only room on the ship. No one was on board and it didn't seem like the scent of the Sharpclaws was strong.

'_Thank god, I thought the Sharpclaws were trying to overtake the Great Fox..._' thought Fox. He jumped off the ship, put the blaster back on his belt, and set a fast pace back to the hallway and to the bridge.

As Fox came up to the bridge door and he said "Unlock", thus, making the door open; he walked on to the bridge and looked around to find who wanted to see him. The first thing that Fox saw as the door slided to a close behind him was Falco staring out into space, apparently lost in his thoughts, Peppy working on a hyperspace flight path to Corneria, and...

"Hello Fox." said a voice to his right.

Fox turned and his jaw dropped. Krystal was standing near the main computer, leaning on it slightly. She was still wearing that loincloth and armor pieces on her shoulders, wrists and ankles. Fox could see the tattoos on her arms and her upper thighs and Krystal's turquoise eyes were averted from looking at the computer to look at Fox.

"Krystal? W-what are you doing here?" stammered Fox, "I-I thought you were gone and going to c-continue on your quest..."

Krystal smiled. "Can't I just stop by and say thank you?" Her British accent was so very kind. "No one has helped me on my journey before, expect the Cloudrunner named Kyte... who I believe you saved on your quest on Sauria. I thank you again for saving him."

"Er...right..." said Fox shyly, "No...no problem Krystal...just...just doing my job..." Just then, a small toad came around the computer, with a wrench in his webbed hand.

"Well, hi Fox! You went to your room so fast I didn't even see you board the ship. Oh...I've seen you met Krystal already..." said Slippy, with stains on his uniform and skin.

"Yes I did Slippy..." said Fox absentmindedly. "So...Krystal...is there anything I could do for you?" he added hopefully.

"Thanks Fox, but no...I better be on my way...I only came here to say 'thank you'." replied the vixen.

'_Aw man...I really want her to stay..._' thought Fox. He noticed her ear twitch.

"I know you do Fox, but I have no reason to stay...but I would like to stay if I had a reason to..." said Krystal with a hint of regret in her voice.

"How did you-" started Fox.

"I'm a telepath," said Krystal. "It means I can read other people's thoughts Slippy." she added, glancing at the toad. Slippy's eyes widened with surprise; Fox assumed he thought something like, '_Whats a telepath?_'.

Fox was frantically trying to find a way for Krystal to stay as she said "Thanks again, Fox. Good-bye, and good luck with your mercenary job." and turned to the bridge door, most likely heading for the hangar. She waved at Peppy, but seemed to ignore Falco, as he ignored her.

'_Thats it!_' thought Fox as he got a sudden idea.

"Krystal?" he said. She stopped and turned around with and eyebrow raised, prompting him to continue.

"How would you...how would you like to join the Star Fox team?" She just stared at him, with her mouth slightly open, speechless,and no one else spoke.

_'I hate this silence...someone brake it already..._' thought Fox after about one and a half minutes of silence.

"Fox..." said a voice to his right, "**What are you thinking!**" As Falco yelled that, Fox felt a tug on his belt and something being removed from it, but, due to Falco's statement, he ignored it.

Krystal answered him roughly. "He's thinking 'Please join the team, please join the team.'".

Everyone ignored her, expect Peppy, who laughed and Fox, who glanced at her with a faint smile.

"**Has she even held a blaster?**" continued Falco at a yelling volume, "**Does this weakling know what it takes to be part of-" **he broke off, as Krystal pointed a blaster, which Fox noticed it was his, directly at Falco's heart.

"Take that back now..." she said in an extremely dangerous voice as she advanced toward Falco, with the blaster still pointing at his chest.

"T-take what back?" studdered Falco as he backed against the wall, glaring at the raised weapon in Krystal's paw.

"You called me a 'weakling'...I never deal with insults that are directed at me and aren't true...and you could have said 50 other words...I heard it in your mind..." whispered Krystal in that dangerous voice, advancing on Falco even more and redirecting the blaster to his head.

Fox was about to intervene when, "Ho ho! I think she should join...if I do say so myself." Everyone on the bridge looked around to find the source of the voice, expect Falco, who was still staring at the blaster with fear and anger in his hawk eyes.

"General Pepper!" exclaimed Fox. "Hey...I thought the communication systems were down..."

"Oh...that was my fault," said Slippy, "I turned them off for maintenance when you came back on the ship, and that is why I was behind the computer when you came to see Krystal."

'_Oh, great...I typed that report for nothing!_' thought Fox. A faint giggle came from Krystal, and Fox glanced at her.

"So...General...you think that this amateur..." started Falco. Krystal's tail and ear twitched and she turned to look at Falco with furious eyes.

Falco hastily changed his wording. "Th-that this...vixen..." Krystal eyed him closely; Fox could tell she could see how hard it was for Falco to say 'vixen'. "Should be p-part of the team?" finished Falco hurriedly.

"Yes...but that decision is not mine, for it is Fox's." replied the hologram of the hound dog's head.

"Really? I didn't know that..." said Fox said with slight relief.

"What? You didn't know that because you are the leader of this team that you can recruit others to the Star Fox team Fox?" said Peppy with a slight smile.

"No...I didn't."said Fox. "Well then, Krystal, if you want to, you have my permission to join the team."

"**What a load of -" **started Falco.

"**Oh, don't you start Falco!**" yelled Krystal over him.

"**I have a right to say this! I just got back and now I have to compete with you!**" yelled Falco, even louder than Krystal just did.

The vixen started charging the blaster.

"Krystal!" said Fox alarmed, and he grabbed her extended arm. Her arm moved slightly under his paws and Krystal looked at him. Her angry eyes softened when she looked into Fox's. Fox could see a very small tear in one eye; the vixen sighed.

"I'll join...I would only go around looking for answers about my planet...and I have not been successful in the past...I might get answers faster if I join this team..." said Krystal with her head hung down.

"Answers?" asked Peppy.

"I may explain later...but I don't want to right now." she said, and a somber look came into her eyes.

She glanced at Fox, and Fox let go of her arm. Krystal stopped charging the blaster and lowered it to her side. Falco snorted and walked over to his chair and sat in it with his legs crossed. Krystal glared at Falco his entire way to his chair, then handed Fox his blaster back.

Fox put the blaster back on his belt, let out a sigh then said "Thank you General."

The holographic image of the hound-dog nodded. "My pleasure Fox. I didn't know that you didn't know your full responsibilities as the team leader. I'm glad I informed you about it Fox."

"Eheh...Thank you." muttered Fox, rubbing the back of his head. "Now, I will give you my report on Sauria... _and I already memorized it because I already typed it...that_ _was a waste of time..._' he thought after he let his voice fade.

Krystal slapped him on the shoulder while she was walking past him, holding back a laugh.

**Note: If you could not guess, 's-e-mail' stands for space-e-mail. ****Chapter 2 coming as soon as I can get it as perfect as I can.**


	3. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: As I said before, Nintendo owns Star Fox, not me.**

**Note: Krystal speaks 'Saurian' or 'Dinosaur Language' for the first time in this chapter. Try to find the words when you read it, then translate them the best you can to see what she says.**

The Catastrophe of War

Chapter 2

Krystal walked over to a chair near the main computer and sat in it. She had a long ordeal back on Sauria and she was glad it was over. And now, she has a place to be, no longer roaming the galaxy for answers.

'_I'm glad I joined this team; now I will have some company on my personal quest as we go around the Lylat System. I just hope they don't make a mission looking for answers about my planet's destruction. There is no need..._'she thought as she crossed her legs.

Krystal looked around the bridge and watched Fox tell his report to the General. She listened closely to what he said about her and noticed that he glanced at her each time he said her name. The vixen smirked and started thinking about her future as a Star Fox team member when Peppy came up next to her.

"Krystal, we are about to make our way to Corneria, and many people on the planet, including General Pepper, may be offended by the way you are dressed." said the hare.

"I can understand that..." muttered Krystal, looking down at her wrist, gazing at the armor piece firmly locked on to her wrist.

"We have a room prepared for you, ROB set it up when Fox said you could join. You could go there and change into more suitable clothes. I can show you-"

"There is no need Mr. Peppy." interrupted Krystal. "I know where the room is, I read the layout of the ship when I was waiting for Fox."

Peppy gaped at her. "How...it took me years to memorize this ship's layout...and you...memorized it in 7 minutes..."

Krystal laughed. "Lets say I have something close to photographic memory and leave it at that." she said as she stood up.

"Oh, Krystal, one more thing..."

"Hm?"

Peppy smiled. "There is no need to call me 'Mr. Peppy', just call me Peppy; if there was someone on board this ship that would need to call me 'Mr.' it would be Slippy."

Krystal smiled as well and walked past Peppy to go to her room to change her clothes.

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Fox finished his report to General Pepper 3 minutes later. "Thank you for that report Fox." said the General.

"No problem, sir." responded Fox as he saluted.

"Haha, you're just like your father...I remember that salute so well...I'll see you here at Corneria soon Fox. Pepper out." With that, his head vanished.

Fox looked around and noticed Krystal was not there, nor did he notice her leave the bridge.

"Eh...she decides where she wants to go. She is a member of this team so she has access to most parts of this ship. I don't need to hold her hand...no matter how much I want to...so I'll just go back to my room and delete that report I typed." he said to himself as he made his way to the door.

When he got to the bridge door and said "Unlock." he turned to Slippy, who was behind the computer again, a few feet away from Fox.

"Start our way to Corneria ASAP Slippy." he ordered.

"Ok, Fox." replied the toad with a grunt as he screwed in a bolt.

Fox continued to the hall and to his room. He passed the hangar, ignoring it now that he knew that the Sharpclaw ship is Krystal's, and walked past Slippy's room. As he passed the guest room, he noticed that the sign, that used to read 'Guest Room', now reads 'Krystal's Room'.

"ROB." said Fox into his wrist communicator, stopping a few yards from Krystal's room.

"Yes?" answered the robot.

"Where did you put the new guest room now that the old one is now Krystal's?" asked Fox.

"The guest room is now room #7, three rooms down from yours Fox." said ROB's voice the very second after Fox finished.

"Ok. Thats all ROB." said Fox and turned off his communicator. '_Whew...I thought if a guest was going to stay on this ship, he or she would have to share a room with one of us...haha...Krystal would not like that...' _he thought as he took a step forward.

As he did so... "Fox?"

He stopped his step and turned around; his jaw dropped again, he couldn't help it.

Krystal just stepped out of her room and the door was closing behind her. She was no longer wearing the loincloth or those armor pieces. The vixen replaced them with a light blue leather jacket that matching her fur completely, and there were holes in the jacket sleeves and the pink shirt under it so Fox could see her tattoos on her arms. She also has on a dark pair of blue jeans, and those have holes in them too, so everyone could see the swirl tattoos on her upper thighs, and she also replaced her sandals with black leather boots.

'_Wow..._' thought Fox.

"What? Do you like it?" asked Krystal, stepping in front of him.

"Yeah...yes I do..." said Fox. Her tail flicked back and forth and she hugged him.

"Thank you Fox...no one has ever done this much for me..." the vixen murmured over Fox's shoulder.

"Like I said before...no problem..." said Fox as he looked at her on top of his shoulder. He pushed back her bangs so he could see her eyes...they are so beautiful...

"Fox!" Falco's voice snapped Fox and Krystal like a whip. They both looked around frantically but they did not see the blue avian.

"Oh, duh, your communicator Fox." said Krystal.

Fox smiled lightly and turned on his communicator so he could talk to Falco. "Yeah? What is it Falco?" he said.

"We are about to enter hyperspace, and Peppy advises you and Krystal to hold on to something sturdy so you don't go flying around..." Slippy's voice joined his.

"But don't hold on to each other!" and he burst out laughing.

Fox was about to say something to Slippy when he heard a slapping noise. "You idiot!" said Falco's voice furiously, "Why would they do that?"

"Never mind that Falco" said Fox quickly; he knew exactly what Slippy meant and when he looked up at Krystal, she was giggling so hard it seemed like she couldn't breathe. "How long until we enter hyperspace? And why are we entering it so soon?" asked Fox into his communicator.

"About 2 minutes, and if your near Krystal's room, which by the signal of this communicator, I think you are, you won't be able to get back in time." Peppy added his voice into Fox's communicator.

"The reason why we are entering hyperspace so soon Fox is because I remember you saying 'ASAP'. Well, this is as soon as possible." The hare chuckled at his remark.

"Great..." muttered Fox. "Ok, we will be back onto the bridge once we enter hyperspace. Fox out." he turned his communicator to allow only ROB's voice to be heard off it.

"Ok, lets get into your room and hold on to that bed, it should be sturdy enough." said Fox, "And I don't mean we will be on TOP of the bed Krystal!" he added as she started giggling again.

They walked into her room and Fox turned on the lights. The room was plain; a bed, dresser, a door that led to the bathroom, a sitting area and a computer near a window was all that was in the room. Laying on the table in the sitting area was Krystal's loincloth and top, her staff, her armor pieces and her old sandals.

"Ok, lets grab the legs of the bed; they are screwed into the floor." said Fox.

Krystal nodded and knelled down and held on to the lower left leg of the bed, while Fox grabbed the lower right leg.

ROB's voice sounded off of Fox's wrist. "Entering hyperspace in 5...4...3...2...1..."

The ship gave a almighty lurch; Fox and Krystal redoubled their grip and curled their bodies around the legs of the bed. The engines hummed louder than normal, and Fox felt felt his body being torn away from the bed leg. As the Great Fox speed up to 3 A.U.s per hour, everything that was not buckled down was rolling toward the back of the room; which includes all the stuff that was on Krystal's table.

"Oh no, the staff!" yelled Krystal. "If it hits this hard floor, it's powergem will shatter!"

Fox reached for the staff, which was no easy task. The G-forces on the ship were up to 6, so Fox could barely lift his arm. As he watched the staff fall, he noticed, by sheer dumb luck, it was falling towards his paw. He opened his palm with great difficulty and caught the staff.

"Got it." grunted Fox as the G-forces slowly returned to normal. Krystal let out a sigh of relief as the ship adjusted the artificial gravity to the speed it was going.

Fox and Krystal let go of the bed legs and stood up. Fox's arms were pulsing from his effort on holding on to the bed and he rubbed them as if he was cold. Krystal, however, was walking over to her closet and pulled something out of it; a small box.

"Whats that?" asked Fox as he stopped rubbing his pulsing arms and sat down on the bed.

"Its a gift, if you will, for saving me." said Krystal.

"But...why are you giving me it now?" said Fox puzzled; this seemed like an odd time to give him a gift. He didn't think he even needed one.

"Well, I was going to wait until you come into my room and...you are in my room now so this is a good time to give you this gift."

"But...I don't need a gift. I just saved you because it was the right thing to do."

"Ah..." said Krystal as she sat down next to him putting the box on his lap. "I think you will like it anyway."

"What is it?" asked Fox as he eyed the box as if it was a cheeseburger.

"Its a prototype of my staff." Fox ripped open the box like a mad man, Krystal laughing at his effort to destroy the box.

As he found the staff in the demolished box, he noticed it was silver, not gold; the gem and designs on it were a green-ish color, not purple.

"Wow..."

"This staff can do everything that my staff can do." said Krystal. "But it can't do that useless portal-opening skill." Fox laughed. "Keep it with you when we go on missions...it may come in handy."

"Yeah..." said Fox as he gazed at the shortened silver staff. He pushed a small button near the green powergem which made it extend. It is the same size as Krystal's and as the same designs on it. He gazed at it for what felt like hours.

"Ok." said Fox as he pulled his eyes off of the staff. "Lets get back to the bridge before we get out of hyperspace." he added as he stood up.

Krystal nodded and stood up too. Fox and Krystal walked out of the room, and Fox shorted his new staff and put it on his back.

"I'm glad you like it, Fox." said Krystal from behind him as he walked down the hallway. They made the rest of the way to the bridge silently.

As Fox and Krystal stepped into the bridge ("Unlock."), they noticed that Peppy, Falco and ROB were trying to pry Slippy off of his new plush seat because he had sunk into it. Fox and Krystal laughed, which announced their presence.

"Oh, Fox, Krystal; good, your ok. You didn't end up like Slippy." said Peppy. "Can you two come over here and help us get Slippy out of this mess? We need to get him free before we get out of hyperspace."

Fox nodded and Krystal didn't say anything as they both walked over to the toad stuck in his plush seat.

"Get me out...of...here..." came a muffled croak from in the chair.

"Just sit tight Slippy..." began Krystal.

"It's not like I have a choice..." muttered Slippy and a green webbed hand came out and started waving at them.

Fox laughed, but Krystal frowned and pulled out her staff.

"What are you going to-" started Fox, but Krystal put up a paw to silence him.

She she placed her raised paw back firmly back on her staff muttered something in the Saurian language so quietly, Fox could not hear what she said. As soon as she finished, the staff started to glow a faint, but dark blue. Krystal placed the end of the staff gently on the surface of the plush seat and said strongly "Ludajx!", jabbing the seat slightly with her glowing staff. The seat disappeared and Slippy was seen floating a foot off of the ground, blinking, and fell to the floor with a small grunt.

"How-" said Fox, Falco, Peppy, and ROB at the same time; Slippy was just staring at the ceiling with a shocked expression.

"Don't ask..." said Krystal with a faint smile. "It is extremely complicated and I'm the only one that can do what I just did." She turned around and walked to the door, with everyone staring after her.

Before she got to it, she glanced backwards and said, "I can sense we are going to get out of hyperspace in about three and a half minutes. I'm going back to my room and no, Fox, you can't come this time." the vixen added as Fox opened his mouth.

Fox gaped at her for a few seconds and mustered the strength to mutter "...Ok then...".

He stared into her right eye, which was the one that was gazing at him with her head turned toward him. He started to wonder if thinking if he could go to her room offended her.

Fox winced when he heard Krystal's voice in his mind. '_We aren't that close yet Fox...I can't just let you come into my room as often as you go in yours._'

Fox sighed and nodded slowly then averted his eyes to his boots, a burning thought in his mind. '_Dang it! Why did I have to think if I could come with her...its her room...and I continue to forget she is a telepath!_'

Fox noticed that Krystal would have heard that; he looked up. Krystal was still looking at him with her head turned, and her eyes betraying nothing. She turned her head back and walked off the bridge ("Idcesb".) with her tail waving behind her as if it was caught by wind.

Fox reached forward with an arm, but it was no use. He wondered again if he upset her in anyway. He was also starting to feel guilty that he was acting like he and Krystal were married...

"Fox! What are you doing? Get up here and hold on!" yelled Peppy.

Fox snapped out of his thoughts and looked around. Falco, Peppy, and Slippy were holding on to a railing on the upper level of the bridge; ROB was no where in site. Fox also realized he was standing in the same spot for over 3 minutes and he gasped as he remembered that they were coming out of hyperspace. He ran over to the railing and grabbed it.

"Exiting hyperspace in 5...4...3...2...1..." came ROB's voice.

Fox was not prepared for the exiting of hyperspace, as he was still thinking about Krystal so much, that his grip was loose. As soon as the Great Fox gave another lurch, he lost his grip on the rail, flew over the crouched Falco, Slippy and Peppy and slammed into the wall behind them and got pinned to it, due to the G-forces. He was pinned to the wall for 1 minute and after the G-forces got to normal, he fell to the ground with a dull thud. However, he didn't feel the pain of hitting the hard floor as the ship slowed down...because Fox was knocked unconscious when he hit the wall...

**Note: Fox will live if you thought he'll die. Remember, he is alive during Assault, and I'm not there yet! Also, A.U. stands for Astronomical Unit; 1 A.U. is about 93 million miles.**


	4. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Star Fox is Nintendo's property. Not mine.**

The Catastrophe of War

Chapter 3

'_Light...so...bright...need to...cover...that...light..._' this thought was the first thought that Fox could register as he awoke slowly.

He didn't know where he was or what had happened. He lifted his arm, which felt like lead, and covered his eyes with his forearm. As his eyes adjusted to the dimmed light, he slowly lowered his arm so his eyes would adjust to the brighter light. As they did, Fox noticed he was in a Cornerian hospital room. He lifted his head slowly and felt his neck pop. As he propped his elbow so he could sit up, he noticed a figure standing at the window, staring at the rising Cornerian sun. Its silhouette, completely black due to the light in front of it, showed that it's arms were crossed while leaning on the windowsill.

'_Who is that?_' thought Fox.

The figure's ear moved slightly and turned around, but was still black as it did so Fox could not tell who it was. The figure slowly walked over to Fox, and while doing so, pushed a button that made the blinds on the windows fall so the bright light filling the room would dim. Fox's eyes widened as he saw a faint outline of Krystal sit down next to his bed and placed her paw on his shoulder in a motion to lay back down. He obeyed it's pressure without protest and lowered back to his pillow.

"...How do you feel Fox?..." murmured Krystal as she removed her paw from his shoulder.

"Like crap...I feel so weak...and my head..." he just noticed that he was only seeing out of his left eye; he felt around his head and noticed it was covered with so many bandages, it formed a turban. This turban was slanted over his right eye and covered his head completely, even though he could feel his ears poking out from the top of all of the bandages.

"What...happened...to my head?" ask Fox wearily. As he said this, a pulsing pain filled his skull.

"Ughnn...ow...AUUUGGGGH!" yelled Fox in pain as the pain moved from his right side of his head to all the way through his skull.

"Calm down Fox." said Krystal calmly.

Fox was amazed and confused about how calm she was, then got hit by another wave of pain. "owww...ugh...auuurg...AHHHHHH!" he screamed as he screwed his eyes in pain.

Krystal's eyes widened with alarm when she noticed that the situation may be more serious than she thought when the rest of the team was carrying Fox up to his room. She stood up over his thrashing body and placed her paws gently on his head. '_Oh my...a fractured skull...its worse than I thought_' she thought to herself. '_I have to act now...I hope Peppy doesn't mind..._'.

Krystal removed her paws from Fox's head, who was still panting and grunting in pain. The vixen cracked her knuckles and placed her hands together in a hand sign, then after that sign, she made another and another.

While repeating seven different signs, she was chanting, "Xoucadw fenohj ev m0 udsojkehj, hofuah kxaj vhuskihot jbicc."four times.

Her paws glowed a golden brown, and she placed them on Fox's head again. Fox gasped and lie still. His head glowed the same color as Krystal's paws and Krystal clenched Fox's skull more tightly. After 8 seconds holding Fox's head tightly, Krystal let go of his head and stepped back as her telepathic powers did their work. Even though she could not see his head directly, due to the bandage turban, she sensed that his skull healed.

'_He'll be ok...he just needs to rest some more...I will come back soon Fox._' she thought, sending the last part to Fox. The weakened fox let out a slight moan as the faint light around his head faded. The vixen noticed he was drifting to back sleep. She leaned over his motionless body and gave him a small kiss on the check, then walked out of the room quietly.

Fox awoke again 5 hours later, and as he did, he found Peppy leaning over the top of his bed...sleeping.

"...Peppy?" said Fox weakly.

The hare's eyes flickered and he woke up slowly. He yawned and lifted his head.

"Huh?" said Peppy sleepily. "Oh, Fox! You're awake!"

"Peppy..." said Fox, "Why am I here...what...what happened? I remember waking up earlier and noticing I was not on the Great Fox...seeing Krystal in here...and that sheering pain..."

The hare was just looking at him blankly; even though his eyes showed concern. "You had a fractured skull when you hit that wall on the Great Fox when we got out of hyperspace Fox. It-"

"Fractured-"

"Yes, a fractured skull, a big fracture at that; it was on your right side." continued Peppy with an offended look on his face after Fox interrupted him.

"'Had'...'was'...I don't have a fracture any more?" asked Fox puzzled.

"No, you do not."

"Then how did it heal so soon?"

The hare looked equally puzzled as Fox. "I have no idea...before you woke up with Krystal in here, you had the fracture, but when she left...it was no longer there. Krystal must of done something, but I don't know what."

Fox got lost in his thoughts. '_I wonder what she did...well, I know she healed my skull...but...how did she do it? I hope this means that she forgives me for what I said or thought on the Great Fox earlier..._'

Fox heard another voice in his mind. '_I can not explain what I did Fox. It is something unique to my race...as for my forgiveness...you have already received it..._'

Fox sighed. "How long have I been here?" he asked Peppy.

Peppy rubbed the back of his head, apparently trying to remember some information. "You have been unconscious for the past 4 days...the doctors were about to pronounce you dead but Krystal sensed that you were alive and the doctors kept you in this room ever since. Krystal said that-"

"He would come around in due time, and there was no need to give him any surgery or medication." said a voice from the doorway.

Peppy turned around because his back was to the door; Fox, however, just turned his head to the right.

"...Krystal."muttered Fox.

The vixen was leaning against the door frame with her arms crossed. She was wearing a light blue t-shirt with the Star Fox logo on it, dark blue jeans and she was still wearing those black leather boots.

Peppy seemed slightly alarmed. "Why are you here Krystal? Aren't you tired? You've been up for the past 2 days looking over Fox." he said with a touch of concern in his voice, as he always does.

"No...I'm not tired..." replied the vixen. "As for the reason why I am here, General Pepper has asked me to replace your 'sentry' duty over Fox so you could get some rest."

Fox wondered how she could stay up so long. '_Two days? Meaning...two days straight? Jeez! I've only been able to stay awake for 20 hours tops! How does she do it? ...Wait a minute..._' Fox remembered that she was a telepath...so, predictably, the vixen glanced at him.

Peppy yawned. "Yeah...I guess you're right...I do need some rest...I'll see you later Fox." he said and patted Fox on the shoulder. He walked over to the door and Krystal stepped out of the way so Peppy could get past.

As the hare disappeared from view, Krystal walked over to Fox's bedside, turned the chair that Peppy was just sitting on around so that the back was against the bed and sat in it, with her arms crossed over the top of it.

"You feel ok now Fox?" she asked with more emphasis on the word 'now'.

"Much better...than I did about...how long ago were you in here? When I first woke up?"

"That was 5 hours ago." said Krystal.

"Hmm..." sighed Fox, trying to remember what happened when the pain was overtaking him.

"I was wondering Fox," continued Krystal, "Why did you lose your grip on that railing on the bridge; yes, I know what happened, Slippy told me." she added when Fox looked surprised.

Fox hesitated. "Um..." he was struggling to find the right words; he also noticed that Krystal was eying closely, with her ears swiveled around pointing in his direction, as if listening to his thoughts more closely than normal.

"Yes?" prompted Krystal.

"I was...I was erm..." Fox didn't want to tell her that he was thinking about her a lot when he was holding on to the railing on the Great Fox. Then, Fox felt a freezing chill in his mind and it went blank. He knew no more as his vision went blue.

The sensation lasted about 3 minutes. After that amount of time, his mind came clear again, his head felt warm, and his vision went back to normal. As the room came into view as if like coming out of a dense blue fog, Fox noticed Krystal was glaring at him with narrowed eyes; Fox knew instantly what that sensation was as he looked into her narrowed eyes.

"Fox...you were thinking about me when you were holding onto that railing...weren't you? More than enough to lose your concentration on the railing resulting you getting a fractured skull." she said calmly, but Fox could tell she was not to happy about it.

Fox decided it was not a good choice to lie; besides, she just probed into his mind and read it word by word. "Yes...yes I was..." responded Fox guiltily.

Krystal didn't seem furious, but not glad either. "Fox, in the future, I don't want you to let your mind drift to think about me when something potentially life threating is occurring; you were lucky that you only got a fractured skull." she commanded as she stood up.

"I'm...I'm sorry Krystal..." muttered Fox while gazing at her paws on her hips.

"There is nothing to be sorry for Fox...besides..." her eyes and voice softened has she took a step backwards toward the door. "I was kinda' thinking about you too." Fox gaped at her as she walked out of the room, completely speechless to what the vixen just said.

Fox was released from the hospital the next day and he was on his way to the Corneria Army Headquarters (CAHQ) to see General Pepper for something. He had a fast pace going toward the CAHQ building, which was about 2 miles away from the hospital,when he found Slippy stepping out of the hardware store, with a lot of supplies to update the Great Fox. So much in fact, it seemed like the toad was being crushed under the weight of all of the supplies he bought.

"Hey Slip!" yelled Fox as he jogged to catch up with the moving pile of metal and tools.

"Fox?" said a voice from under the pile; it turned around and nearly hit Fox in the gut with a metal 4x4. "Is that you? I remember that Falco said that you were out of the hospital, but I didn't believe him, so I didn't check on you before you left. Er...could you ah...could you help me out here?" he said with a hint of urgency.

"Yeah." said Fox; he couldn't bare to see Slippy's tiny legs trembling under this pile of metal.

Slippy placed the pile of metal on the ground; Fox split it in two and he took one half of the pile. He noticed there was gold metal shining very brightly in the Cornerian noon sun.

"Slippy? Whats this gold metal for?" asked Fox as he concentrated on not slipping.

"It's a new 'suit' for ROB. I think he needs to be updated pretty badly; I still need to fix his joints, because the oil didn't do anything." came Slippy's voice from under his half of the pile.

"Figures..." grunted Fox as he readjusted his grip on the pile of metal.

Fox and Slippy took the supplies to the Great Fox, which was docked at a special hangar on the edge of Corneria City. Slippy asked if Fox could stay and help him update the Great Fox, but Fox said he had to go CAHQ to see General Pepper. Slippy, who did his best to hide his disappointment, told Fox to say 'hi' to the General and went on board the Great Fox with his half of the supply pile, Fox's was already on board.

Fox ran out of the hangar and sprinted over to the CAHQ building in the middle of the City. On his way, he nearly crashed into many objects, including Bill, who Fox said a rushed "Hi, Bill." to as he zoomed by; Fox didn't even hear his long time friend's response.

As he got there, one of the guards intercepted him. "Well, hello, Mr. McCloud. Why are you out of breath...er...on the ground gasping for air?" added the guard as Fox collapsed, rubbing his chest.

"Ran...from...the edge...of...the city... to...see...General...Pepper." gasped Fox as he struggled to catch some air.

"Of course; the General did tell me that you were coming. I completely forgot, my apologizes Mr. McCloud."

"None...needed..." said Fox as he stopped struggling for air and took several deep breathes to get his heart to the right beat.

"Please, allow me to show you to the General's office." said the dog moving his paw to open the door.

"Ok...lead the way." said Fox, who took a last deep breath and stepped into the building behind the CAHQ guard dog.

**Note: The hand signs that Krystal made when healing Fox are the hand signs from the anime series, Naruto. If you don't know what those hand signs look like...watch the show, read the series, or look it up. Credit for creating the hand signs in the first place goes to Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of Naruto. I just thought it would be cool to combine Krystal with those hand signs from Naruto. Don't criticize me for it. (Well...do what you like.)**


	5. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Star Fox is one of the best Nintendo games series ever...but it's not mine.**

**Note: I'm very sorry for the extreme delay for this chapter. I had some stuff come up in my personal life so I couldn't work on this. But now...here it is! (Try to) Enjoy!**

The Catastrophe of War

Chapter 4

Fox looked around at the CAHQ lounge as he walked in. '_Well well...It seems that they have remodeled the inside of this building...'_

The floor was covered with silver tile that reflected the sunlight outside of the CAHQ building and the artificial lights inside. The walls were silvery in color but gave off a gold glow. On these walls there were holographic signs showing the availabilities of services, maps of the CAHQ's many floors, maps of the Lylat System, and the guidelines of the building. Along the east and west walls, many desks sat next to each other and were occupied by two animals each. In front of each and every single desk there were lines for both animals at the desks. These lines were so long that the backs of the many animals formed a 3 foot 'walkway' in which Fox and the guard were walking along.

As Fox walked toward the wall where the elevators were, he gathered enough information from the talking animals to guess why they were at the CAHQ, but he could barely hear himself think, as it was extremely loud from all of the talking animals. Many of them were there to ask for help for all kinds of things ranging from asking directions to the many areas of Corneria City to asking for assistance at their job. Others were demanding to hire the Star Fox team for whatever trouble. Fox was slightly disgusted when he overheard one female tiger wondering aloud if Fox could help her deliver her kit. Fox wondered why she was here, not at the hospital.

Fox looked up at the extremely high glass ceiling, which reviled the 30th floor lounge, he noticed that many animals were gazing down toward the ground floor lounge. As he squinted up at the animals pointing down, he saw that the majority of them were pointing at him. He waved politely up to them and they waved frantically back.

As Fox leveled his gaze back to the ground he noticed with horror that many dozens of animals were charging at him. He stopped his steady pace to the elevator and took a step back with his arms raised in a way to try to signal for the animals to stop...but that effort was wasted. The front line of animals jumped on top of him, knocking him to the ground with a loud grunt that was not heard. He let out a yell when the rest of the animals jumped on top of the first group, causing Fox to spit up some blood. The combined weight of the animals added to like having a whale was on top of his gut, thus, Fox was not able to breathe. He struggled to catch some air and, oblivious to the fact they were suffocating Fox, all of the animals began bombarding him with requests.

"McCloud! You must come to Macbeth! There has been a massive explosion-"

"Mr. McCloud! You need to come to Katina! The main base is structurally unsound, and your team is-"

"Mr. Fox! Can you please sign this-"

"Fox! Please go to Aquas! The planet's oceans are overheating and you need to find out-"

"Fox McCloud! You must go to Zoness! The poisoned waters have-"

Fox didn't even try to answer these requests, because all of them were ridiculous, and he couldn't talk because he had no strength to do so. As he started to gag slightly, Fox pushed himself out of the pile of mammals and reptiles in a rolling motion. He got free and jumped to his feet, took a well needed deep breath and looked behind him at the dog pile of animals. The animals on top were still trying to get to the bottom of the pile. Fox assumed that they thought he was still under there and set off toward the elevators at a quick jog.

As he got about 20 yards from the bronze elevator wall, something grabbed him by the ankles and he fell yet again. Fox did his best to brake his fall by throwing his arms in front of him, but when he landed, that action just doubled the pain. He grimaced at the throbbing pain and looked behind him to see what grabbed him.

'_That tiger...'_

"FOX! You need to help me give birth to my kit! You're the only that can do it!" the white tiger yelled at the top of her lungs.

"How am I the only one that can help!" growled Fox. "There is a hospital two miles down the street!"

The tiger didn't respond to him but continued to beg for his help.

Fox shook his head slightly at the stupidity of the tiger and pulled himself to his feet. The tiger held on tight and refused to let go. Fox took a deep breath and heaved himself forward, as well as the tiger ever so slowly to the elevators. He pulled harder and even did some short hops to get over to the elevators quicker. As Fox got closer to the bronze wall and noticed the guard standing next to elevator 12B. He inched his way over to the guard.

"Mr. McCloud. I didn't notice that you fell behind. My apol-"

"No need for apologizes." interrupted Fox gruffly while trying to free his feet from the screaming tiger. "I just need you to find other guards and escort this tiger to the hospital."

"Of course." said the dog. He signaled other guards, who were at other elevators, and they came over at a lightning speed. The entrance guard whispered to them what orders Fox just gave and the four other dogs nodded. They walked over to the tiger at Fox's feet and crouched down next to her. They tried to talk her out of letting go of Fox, but she held on, even tightening her grip with each word the guards said to her. They tried again. She ignored them. The guards shock their heads in unison at the defeat of 'peaceful' removal of the tiger. One of them stood up and took out a stunning blaster. He fired weak shots at each of the tiger's arms, making her yell in pain, and lose her grip on Fox. The guards grabbed her by the elbows and pulled her toward the huge glass entrance doors of the building. She screamed and kicked to get back to Fox, but with four dogs pulling her, there was no way she was going to get free.

Fox sighed and hoped the tiger would be ok and that her kit didn't have the same obsession with him as it's mother. He turned to the elevator and found out that the guard was already inside of it, holding his paw in between the doors so Fox could get in. Fox walked towards the elevator then heard a rumbling behind him; he glanced backwards. He gave a shout and ran the rest of the way into the elevator to avoid the same group of charging animals that jumped him in the first place.

As he ran past the guard, the dog immediately pushed the 'close' button to make the doors of the elevator close. Fox crashed into the back wall of the elevator and got the wind knocked out of him _yet again_. He glanced backwards in time to see a pig, lioness, and lizard reaching forward towards Fox, about 4 feet from the doors, but they closed in front of them, saving Fox from the idiotic animals.

"Holy cow..." muttered Fox. "Do you have to deal with that every single day?" he asked the dog as the elevator started to move upward toward the 68th floor.

"Yes, yes I do." replied the guard with a slight moan.

Fox and the guard arrived at the 68th floor in less than 1 minute. The doors opened and Fox stepped off of the elevator and braced himself for another stampede, but there was none. He looked back to the guard with a puzzled look.

"...Mr. McCloud," said the guard dryly, "This is General Pepper's floor. There are no civilians on this floor. Only specialized personnel know the code to get on to this floor."

"Right..." muttered Fox.

"You will find General Pepper's office to your right, and 5 doors down. Have a good day." said the dog and he pushed a button inside the elevator. The doors started to close.

"If you are going back to the ground floor, watch yourself; its a jungle down there." said Fox hastily as the dog started to disappear behind the doors.

"Will do." said the dog with a smirk, and the doors closed completely in front of him.

Fox turned around and looked at the 68th floor landing. Formal looking animals were walking along the red carpet in a professional way...not looking anywhere but in front of them, walking as if they were in a line of marching soldiers, and had a set face that did not change. Fox felt a bit...under classed as he turned to his right and moved down the brightly light, silver walled hallway, toward General Pepper's office. Fox noticed that this level only consisted of the General's employees. No army personnel, no janitors, no guard dogs. All of the animals had the same blue and gray uniform, with the red words 'Employee of General Pepper' printed on the chest.

Fox realized that he was so intent at looking the employees, that he surpassed the General's office by 15 doors. He doubled back toward the General's office and knocked on the door.

"Come in." said a female voice.

Fox stepped inside. General Pepper's secretary was typing on her computer and looked up when Fox stepped inside.

"Ah, Mr. McCloud. General Pepper is waiting for you." she pointed towards another door, which Fox walked over to it, after saying "Thank you." to the secretary and knocked on the door.

"Come in Fox." said another female voice; this time, Fox recognized it. As he opened the door and stepped into the brightly light room, Fox saw Krystal sitting in front of the General's desk, where the hound dog was sitting himself.

"Fox! You made here just in time; I saw you run down the street." said General Peppy with a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Well, I didn't want to be late...for whatever you sent me for." said Fox as he closed the door and walked over toward the desk.

He took his time going to the desk though, because he wanted to look around at the General's office. The walls were painted with a bright gold and many certificates lined the wall behind the General. Fox looked to his left and noticed that there was no wall, but every square inch of where a wall should be, there was a single giant plate of glass made a huge window that looked over Corneria City. He looked to his right and the wall was lined with many filing cabinets.

Fox sat down next to Krystal. The blue vixen said nothing, but she just glanced at Fox when he sat down.

"Well, Fox, you have decided to let Krystal to join the team. I'm completely fine with it, and I could not change it if I had the chance, because you are the leader of the team. However, you need to train with her every other day to help her upgrade her skills." said the General. "I have set aside a shooting range for the Star Fox team, and is off-limits to the rest of the Corneria population; expect for me and my employees of course. You can head there right now if you like."

"Ok General, but, where is this shooting range located?" asked Fox.

"Right next to the Great Fox hangar two and a half miles from here Fox." said General Pepper.

"How convenient." muttered Fox. "We'll head there right now."

At those words, Krystal stood up, walked over to the door, opened it, and walked out of the room without a word.

Fox stared at the door which Krystal just walked through.

"...Any idea whats upsetting her Fox?" asked Pepper.

"None..." sighed Fox.

"Well, catch up with her and see what is troubling her." said the hound dog.

Fox was slightly shocked; he thought the General wanted him for a more pressing matter, like a mission, rather then what the General just told him.

"Does that mean I'm dismissed? Thats all you wanted to see me for? To say that I needed to train with Krystal?" asked Fox.

"Hmm...that's a 'yes' to all three of those questions Fox." said Pepper with a smile.

Fox laughed and set a face pace towards General Pepper's office door. But when he was about to open it, he looked back at the General.

"General...down on the ground floor lobby, several animals were saying that there has been an explosion on Macbeth...the Katina main base is collapsing...Aquas' oceans are overheating...and that Zoness' oceans are too poisonous for the structures there. Are any of those true?" Fox wanted to make sure that the animals downstairs were lying.

"Haha...they really said that down there? No Fox, none of those statements are true." said the General.

"Thank you General." said Fox with a sigh of relief and turning to the door to open it.

He made his way out of the secretary's office, the 68th floor hallway, and pushed the 'down' button near elevator 9A. Within a couple seconds the doors opened and Fox stepped into the empty elevator and pushed the 'ground floor' button. The elevator moved so fast downward, Fox's feet left the floor of the elevator for a split second. As Fox got onto the ground floor, he sprinted toward the entrance so he wouldn't be spotted again.

He stepped out of the CAHQ, and looked around the block. Many animals were walking along the sidewalk, and Fox couldn't see Krystal anywhere. He got worried very quickly and ran towards the hangar on the edge of town. This time, even though he thought he learned his lesson about running this fast down a street, Fox almost crashed into Katt, who he said "Hi Katt." as he ran by the pink cat.

About 1 mile down the road, he ran out of breathe and energy so he slowed down to a fast walk. As he walked past an alleyway, he heard some voices, a dull thud, and a piercing scream. He looked down the alleyway. A female wolf was laying on the ground getting the crap beat out of her by two cats.

Fox saw her head turn toward his direction.

"HELP!" screamed the wolf stretching out her arm toward him. One of the two cats that were beating her up looked toward the entrance of the alley.

The other kicked her in the gut. "Shut it now Kathleen, unless you want your arms broken..."

Fox, due to his good nature, decided to help her out and to give the cats what they deserve. He took out his blaster, put it on stun mode and walked over to the two cats who were harming the wolf.

"Leave her alone!" yelled Fox while raising his blaster.

"Oh, like that's going to make us stop? Ha! You are only one fox; we can take care of you quickly then take this wolf's money and identification card. Come on Kent." said the flame colored cat.

The black cat nodded and stepped forward with the flame furred cat. He took out brass knuckles out of his jean jacket then put them on.

'_Great...I hate those things..._' thought Fox as he took a step forward with the blaster still raised.

"Heh...think you can act tough eh?" said the black cat. "Fine then; it's your funeral! Lets get him Raxis!" he yelled and both cats charged at Fox.

Fox shot a normal blast at Raxis' feet, making him jump. While he was in the air, Fox charged forward. Kent threw a few punches at Fox, but he dodged them and slammed into Raxis' chest. The cat squealed and flew backwards and hit the ground with a loud and painful grunt. Fox quickly charged a blast and hit the flame furred cat in the gut with the charged shot. He let out a scream that was cut short by another shot hitting his chest. He got knocked out cold and Fox turned in time to see brass knuckles contact his face.

Fox grunted and stumbled backwards, still keeping his balance. He felt around his face and felt warm blood flowing out of his broken nose.

"You'll pay for that..." growled Fox. He started charging a shot and pointed it at Kent.

"Do you think that you will get me with that same trick you played on Raxis?" sneered the black furred cat.

"No, I do not." replied Fox roughly.

He pointed the blaster to his right, where a pile of metal boxes lay, and fired the shot. The shot made the pile of boxes fall over, threating to crush Kent. Kent looked up in time and jumped out of the way.

As Kent look to where Fox was, he noticed that Fox was no longer there. He looked around frantically, with his fists raised, the brass gleaming in the sun light. As he thought that the fox gave up and ran away, he got hit hard on the back of the head.

"Ughnn..."

Fox was standing behind him, with his unextended staff raised, like a metal rod. The black cat fell to the ground and lay there, not moving.

Fox put his staff back on his belt and walked over to Raxis' body.

"What a waste..." muttered Fox as he picked Raxis up, and walked over to Kent's body. He moved the black cat's body to the wall, leaned against the silver metal wall and put Raxis' body next to him. He tied them up with rope that was nearby to make sure when they woke up, they could not get away from the cops that would come down this alleyway to do a daily checkup on the area.

As he finished putting rope around their feet, he took out a notepad and wrote:

'These two cats, Kent and Raxis, need to be charged with aggressive assault and attempted robbery. They have severely wounded a gray female wolf, by the name of Kathleen, and she is going to report to the hospital. I hope you will know what to do with these two criminals. And please check on Kathleen in the hospital whenever possible. Thank you. (Signed) Fox McCloud.'

As he put the note on the ground in front of the two unconscious cats, Fox felt a light tap on his shoulder. Fox glanced up and saw the wolf with her purse over her shoulder. She was a mess. Her eye was swollen, her arm was bleeding, she had cuts all over her body, and her gray fur had a red tint all over.

"Thank you very much..." she muttered.

"No problem ma'am." said Fox as he stood up. "I couldn't let you get pummeled after I saw you in trouble; I would never be able to forgive myself if I did nothing."

He noticed that her green eye's widened when she looked at his shirt, where the Star Fox logo was.

"Are...are you...Fox McCloud!" she said breathlessly.

"Yes."

"OH MY GOD!" she yelled; Fox took a step backwards, almost tripping over the two cats.

"Can I have your autograph?" Fox nodded and the speechless wolf handed him a piece of paper and a pen.

**Note: I hope it was good enough for that delay. There may be one or two more chapters before I get to post-Assault. Then it will get much better (in my opinion). Also, school is starting in a few days, so expect more delays with the chapters :(**


	6. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I don't own Star Fox. Glad you asked.**

**Note: This is the last pre-Assault chapter. The next chapter will take place AFTER Assault. Just wanted to point that out. I know I've been a bit slow but I've had so much to do (blame school). Sorry 'bout that. O.K.! Here we go!**

The Catastrophe of War

Chapter 5

'_Right...now that Kathleen is ok, I think it's about time for me to get to the hangar...'_ thought Fox as he watched the battered wolf walk down the street, in the direction of the hospital.

He had signed the piece of paper that the wolf handed to him and added a note saying that the hospital can put the costs of Kathleen's medical bill to his account. When the wolf saw this, Kathleen burst into tears and hugged him tightly, murmuring her everlasting thanks to Fox.

As she reached the end of the street, Kathleen turned around one more time and waved to Fox, and he returned the wave. She blew a kiss to him and then walked around the corner. Fox smirked with slight embarrassment then turned toward the direction of the hangar.

As Fox turned around, his eyes hardened. When he was signing the piece of paper for Kathleen, he kept his eyes carefully neutral, not allowing them to show his emotions. Now that she was fine, Fox let his eyes show the anger and concern he was feeling; he growled slightly and sprinted down the busy street.

Even in the heat of the battle against Kent and Raxis, Fox was constantly thinking about what was troubling Krystal. He was deeply wondering why Krystal was acting like that; from what Fox saw on the surface of Sauria, Krystal has a fighter's spirit and seems calm at all times. But the way she had been so silent and looked very uncomfortable inside of the General's office...that wasn't up to par of what Fox thought about her...but now that he thought about it, Krystal seemed uncomfortable even when she was on the Great Fox.

Fox dodged a few civilians and turned left down an alleyway. Those two cats wasted too much of his time...he needs to find out what was troubling her...because if she keeps feeling like this around the team, she could quit being on the Star Fox team, and Fox couldn't bare it if she did.

Fox turned sharply to his right around a corner that led to the hangars.

WHAM!

"Ah!" Fox recoiled backwards, and fell to the ground. He hit the ground with a light 'thump' and sat there dazed for a few seconds. Fox rubbed and shook his head. His eyes came back into focus and he looked up to see what he had ran into.

"Fox, you really need to look around the corner before you go charging down it; you never know if someone is standing there." said Krystal, who had a paw stretched out to help Fox get to his feet.

Fox stared up at her.

"You didn't lose your balance when I ran into you?" he asked.

Something flickered in Krystal's eyes. "I did...but I didn't fall down on to the ground like you did. I just stumbled a few steps back. Plus, I braced myself for the impact a few seconds before you came running around that corner because I sensed you coming."

She smiled faintly and made a gesture with her paw, signaling to Fox to grab it. Fox continued to look up at her for a few seconds then reached up and gripped her paw tightly. Krystal pulled up and she helped Fox lift himself to his feet. He brushed off dirt off of his cargo jeans and looked at Krystal. She wasn't looking at him directly but seemed oddly interested about his boots. And when she did catch Fox's eyes, she looked away quickly.

'_There you go again. Looking uncomfortable about something._' thought Fox. Krystal didn't react to his thought, but she turned around. Fox heard a small sigh and the vixen started walking down the street toward the gate in front of the hangar.

"Krystal..." groaned Fox, stretching an arm out towards her. She half-glanced backwards, but didn't stop. Fox lowered his arm to his side slowly and started walking after her. She was definitely thinking about something that was not good, and it was making her upset. When Fox caught up with her, he looked down at her legs to match her stride and looked straight at the side of her head, where her face should be if Krystal was looking at him.

"Whats wrong? I know there I there is something troubling you." said Fox after a couple of seconds.

Krystal ignored him.

"Come on Krystal..." muttered Fox, "You've been uneasy around the team and the General. Why are you so uncomfortable?"

The vixen didn't reply but her pace slowed slightly.

"If you don't talk about it, there is no way that you will feel any better." said Fox critically.

The vixen stopped dead and Fox, who didn't expect her to stop, walked right past her. He pivoted on his left leg to do a "U" turn and stood in front of her. Her head was bowed so he couldn't see her expression.

Fox was getting seriously worried; he didn't like seeing Krystal in this state. He reached forward to put his paw on Krystal's shoulder in an encouraging way. But as soon as his paw touched her shoulder, she took a step back, Fox's paw sliding down her arm.

"I...I don't think...I'm good enough...to be..." muttered Krystal. She had her head raised slightly so Fox could see that her eye's were closed tightly as if she was trying to block out everything from her vision.

"...To be...what?" muttered Fox.

She shook her head. "Part...part of this...team..." she whispered.

She took so many backwards steps that she hit the wall behind her. Fox took this chance and walked up to her as she just stood there with her head hanging low again.

"What makes you think that?" said Fox as he stopped in front of Krystal.

She looked up at him. Her eyes were filled with tears and she had the expression like she was scared of something, possibly the future.

"Compared to the rest of the team...Peppy...Falco...Slippy...you...I feel...weak in spirit...I'm not up to this...I have no skill at all...all I have is my staff and telepathic powers and thats it..." she muttered; she looked like she would brake out crying any minute. "I don't think I'm cut out to be a Star Fox member..."

Fox's eyes widened. "Krystal, you are NOT weak in spirit. I saw you on the surface on Sauria. You had the courage to face Andross when he was revived with the Krazoa's power! And even General Scales when you first came on to the planet answering a distress call! And speaking of which, you answered the distress call in the first place!"

Krystal muttered something inaudible.

"As for your skills, it's not like they are going to stay like that forever! That's why the General set aside this shooting range," Fox pointed over a fence, where the shooting range was, "So you can improve your skills. Yes, you do have some skill with this type of stuff Krystal!" he added when she looked at him with an expression clearly saying "_But I have none..._"

"...Fox..."

"Your staff is an excellent weapon! It can turn the tide of a ground battle!" said Fox, with each word he said, his voice grew louder. "Your telepathic powers! They are not useless! You healed my skull...think what you can do on the battle field! And I don't even think I have seen a single percent of your power yet! From what I could guess, you can eliminate an enemy ship with a single blink of an eye!"

"But...I'm not..."

Before he knew what he was doing, Fox was yelling.

"I KNOW YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE PART OF THIS TEAM KRYSTAL! YOU ARE NOT WEAK IN SPIRIT! YOU ARE NOT USELESS! YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THAT YOUR SKILLS AS A MEMBER OF THE TEAM ARE GOING TO STAY AS THEY ARE NOW FOR AS LONG AS YOU LIVE! I DON'T WANT YOU TO THINK THAT YOU ARE NOT FIT TO BE A MEMBER OF THIS TEAM ANYMORE!"

Krystal's jaw dropped in amazement. The tears in her eyes faded and the gleam in her eyes turned to a serious one.

"WE CAN HELP YOU GET BETTER! WE CAN ELIMINATE ALL OF YOUR DOUBTS! ALL OF THE THINGS THAT ARE WORRYING YOU SHOULD NOT EVEN BEEN THOUGHT OF! I DON'T EVEN SEE WHERE YOU GOT THESE DOUBTS FROM! YOU COULD OF ENDED UP QU-"

Fox was cut off by Krystal putting her paw over his mouth. Fox recoiled backwards from the shock of getting grabbed, and, due to Krystal holding on to his mouth firmly, he just succeeded of popping his jaw in and out of place.

The vixen gazed at the hurt and anger in Fox's eyes and she looked down at his chest to observe his fast breathing. She redirected her eyes to his, and she tightened her grip on his jaw, making Fox wince. Krystal pulled him closer to her so that they were nose to nose.

"Fox..." her voice was gentle, but there was a hint of coolness in it. "There is no need to yell. I could hear you clearly; from both your mouth, and your mind...I was not going to quit the team."

Fox glared at her. "_But the way you were acting! Being uncomfortable everywhere the team went; the Great Fox, the hospital, General Pepper's office. All of that points toward that you would want to get away from being here!_" he thought; he would have said these words but the vixen's paw was still firmly over his mouth.

"True." Krystal growled. "I was unconformable at all of those locations, because I felt I didn't belong here. I had doubts that I would be any help...Why? My first relief of being part of this team was not I was going to be with you, but that I would have someplace to be, not going all over galaxies looking for answers about my past." As she said this, Krystal tightened her grip more on Fox's mouth so he would not speak, and blocked out all of his thoughts so they would not interrupt her.

"Due to this, I felt I was being selfish, that I was only on the team because you offered your hospitality and I took it. Also, I thought I would be like one of those idiots that stay on the sidelines and watch their teammates do all of the work. Even though I would do my best on accomplishing the mission, I'd be a burden, and be as useful as those people sitting on the sidelines. I dismissed all of those thoughts... But...after the meeting in General Pepper's office, my uncertainty returned and increased. He had so much faith that I could do this. At first, I was pleased at the fact that he believed in you assisting me. However, the more I thought about the negatives, they replaced the positives. I started to think of what would happen if I never improved...and you can see what resulted of me thinking that."

"_But...if you were having those kind of problems, then why didn't you ask someone for some advice? I would have given you some, or, you could've even asked Peppy...I think he would have given you more confidence than I would have." _

"...I'm just going to say that I feel as though I need to earn the trust of the team before I ask them for advice " replied Krystal. "I need a bit more time to gain trust from the team...I've been on the team for only a few days; for all you could know, I'd kill you in your sleep...Fox...I just said you don't have enough reason to trust me yet." she added with a slight frown when Fox thought "_I'd trust you with my life._"

Fox was calmed down completely now, and he was starting to feel ashamed about the fact he yelled at her.

"_Um...can you let go of my mouth now?_" thought Fox when he noticed that his jaw was going numb with Krystal's above average firm grip.

Krystal smiled and let go of his jaw. Fox took a step back and rubbed his tingling mouth.

"Next time...just grab my arm or shoulder because having a numb mouth is not fun." said Fox.

Krystal nodded and grabbed Fox's paw. "Lets go train, shall we?"

Fox smiled and gripped her paw tightly. "Yeah, lets go." He was slightly surprised that Krystal recovered from that little episode; she was acting as though it never happened. Fox put in the code to open the hangar gate and led Krystal into it to get ready for the rest of the afternoon training.

Over the next year, Fox and Krystal trained on a daily basis to improve both of their skills. Before each training session, Fox briefed Krystal on what they were doing that day, which, after they finished with the basics, were over more advanced techniques. Each training session, Fox trained with Krystal on three major points: Arwing piloting, Landmaster control, and using blasters, homing rockets, etc. on the ground. Krystal, who acted like her doubts never existed after Fox's shouting, worked her hardest to improve.

As they trained, Fox noticed that Krystal has some very strong points. Her accuracy with the blaster, machine gun, and sniper rifle was 100 percent. During one memorable session, Krystal hit a target in the very center of the bullseye with the first shot she fired. After this, she unloaded the rest of the plasma clip on the exact same point, and the rest of the shots went straight through the first hole, and beyond it. Slippy, who was a few hundred yards behind the target, nearly got hit in the head with a shot. As he tried to get out of the line of fire, he ran right into another shot, which went through his favorite hat. Krystal, who was terribly sorry for putting a hole in the toad's hat, promised that she would sew it back together. When Fox asked how she shot like that, Krystal gave him a dirty look, which made Fox realize that he asked a stupid question. Falco, who was practicing nearby, pointed out to a confused Fox that she was using her telepathy to pinpoint the very center of the target.

Krystal's Arwing piloting skills were over par with Fox's. During the same session as the blaster practice, Krystal impressed the hell out of Fox when she completed a flight simulation. Fox's record of destroying holographic enemy ships in 3 minutes was 162. Krystal's was an astounding 203. Falco, whose record was 187, was furious about this, and practiced day and night afterwards to get better than her.

Her weakest point was the Landmaster. The massive tank, which was upgraded by Slippy, proved to be a big problem for Krystal. The control area for the tank was only had nine square feet of walking space. At the right hand side of this 3x3 space, sat a chair, with the controls of the tank in front of it.. Also, the ceiling was only four feet above the floor. When Krystal first got into the tank, she hit her head hard when moving toward control panel. This made the vixen get into a snappy mood, and didn't do to well with her first practice with the tank. What made it worse is that Slippy started teasing her about how bad she was with the Landmaster and that he could do better. This resulted in Slippy being chased by a 30 ton tank, while being shot at, all the way around the range.

When Fox saw this happening, he jumped onto a hover bike and intercepted the rampaging tank. It stopped in front of him, and Fox took this pause to try to reason with Krystal saying, "Ah, you did pretty poorly, but Slippy is very-HEY!" he added when the tank's turret turned toward his direction, and Fox could see the length of the inside of the barrel. When he saw a faint glow inside it, he jumped off his bike, jumped onto the barrel, and ran the length of it. The plasma shot fired behind him and destroyed the bike. He opened the hatch that led to the small control area. He found Krystal shacking with anger and she turned to find Fox's upside down head peering at her. She blushed and insisted that it was a joke. Fox took her excuse and said that they could try again tomorrow. Krystal nodded and crawled on the floor to avoid the low ceiling and climbed out of the tank.

A few months later, the team was on Katina, getting new battle uniforms. At first, Falco and Fox insisted that their suits were ok, but Peppy said that they needed new battle gear any way so might as well get new uniforms. Falco got a red uniform with gray on the sides of his torso and legs. Slippy got a banana yellow suit with finger gloves. Fox got an updated version of his Lylat Wars uniform; green jumpsuit, sliver vest, and red shoulder blades and boots. Krystal got a full body outfit as well, unlike her tribal outfit that she used on Sauria. It consisted of blue leather boots, a blue scale like material all over with stripes of black net-like material on her midsection and her arms. When she stepped out of the changing room, Fox was immediately speechless. When Krystal asked how they liked it, Slippy said it was ok, Falco said he didn't care, and Fox...didn't respond. Krystal noticed this, walked up in front of him and grabbed his left paw with both of hers. When Fox felt the warmth of her paws, he replied "It's very nice Krystal..." Krystal smiled and hugged Fox. Luckily, Falco and Slippy were already on the Great Fox.

They were about to go to the Katina base to check the security when the team got an urgent message from General Pepper.

"Star Fox! Corneria is under attack! Okinney is the mastermind in this invasion! We need your help! We can't do this alone!" the message was cut off by a massive explosion that hit the General's ship.

"We are on our way General!" said Fox, and turned around, where Falco, Slippy and Krystal had stopped walking. "We need to get there as soon as possible! Lets move Star Fox!" he yelled and the team ran back to the Great Fox to warp to Corneria.

**Note: O.K. I can tell that was a pretty lame ending. I was using one of Fox's phrases in Assault (most of us know some of the corny crap he says in that game). I'm going to get to work on Chapter 6 later, and the story will get much better. Wait for it...**

**Also! Can you please submit more reviews? No, I'm not being pushy, I just want to know if the story is ok. As far as I can tell, you could be thinking this is a piece of crap and not telling me about it. If it is a piece of crap, tell me please. I will improve it to the best of my ability. (Flames are accepted...to an extent)**


	7. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I-do-not-own-Star-Fox.**

**Note: This chapter is the first post-Assault chapter, to say, this takes place after Assault. This chapter has more talking than action and yes, it's shorter than some of the other chapters. So, sorry to those who are waiting for the battle action; you are going to have to wait a while more.**

**Let the chapter begin!**

**(this chapter starts right after Fox says "My friends...thank you." at the end of Assault)**

The Catastrophe of War

Chapter 6

A pause followed Fox's statement. A long one...or so it seemed to Fox.

"...Um..." Falco was the first to brake the of three minute pause. "'Thank you'...for what?"

"Yeah, Fox. That just came out of no where. What are you thanking us for and why in such a lame way?" added Slippy to his Arwing communicator where Fox's head was glaring at him.

"Hey hey!" shouted Fox at his communication screen where Peppy's, Falco's, and Slippy's heads were looking at him as if he had brain damage. "It was the best I could think of, to say 'thank you' to you guys! It's hot in this Arwing after that escape from the aparoid home planet! The heat was just getting to my head so I have a slight headache and I'm not thinking clearly!"

"Sure Fox." muttered Peppy, tapping Fox's head on his screen. "I'm sorry but that was the lamest thing you ever said; yet...'your welcome' for helping you."

"Thanks Peppy." growled Fox resentfully.

The Star Fox team had just escaped the exploding aparoid home planet and were slowly gliding toward the endless blackness of space with bits and pieces of the planet flying past them. With the aparoid queen killed, all the apariods all over Lylat would be destroyed, but destroying the queen was HARD.

After Beltino finished to self-destruct program, the team planned the confrontation aparoid queen. The finished process of killing the queen seemed so simple, and Fox believed that it would be a 'walk in the park', compared to previously fought battles. However, in the real battle, the queen did some unexpected attacks, and the team's plan was completely useless. Because of this, everyone's attacks were unorthodox, and proved to be reckless, and life threating; they barely managed to weaken the queen to use the program.

After Fox injected the program into the queen, she suppressed it, and transformed again, closer to the planet's hollow core. This final form put up a pretty good fight, so good in fact that Fox was nearly killed, but Slippy missed an incoming piece of metal that was going to hit his ship, and the missed shot was the final shot to destroy the queen. Fox laughed at the heroic mistake and ordered the team to evacuate the planet at 'maximum velocity'. They had no problems leaving, and when they just got out of the planet's gravitational pull, it exploded, resulting in the debris floating near them now.

When they first started slowing down from the high speed escape, the team was horrified about the amount of casualties in the Lylat System, one of them being Peppy. When the hare crashed the now destroyed Great Fox into the energy shield that protected the hole to the center of the planet, the whole team assumed he was dead, or got infected by the aparoids. But, that was not the case.

Before the Great Fox exploded, Peppy managed to get to an escape pod and fled from the Great Fox in time, with ROB on board as well. The team didn't know about this, because that had to go into the planet's core immediately after Peppy used the Great Fox to destroy the shield. When they escaped the planet, they found Peppy floating out in space waiting for them. The entire team was very happy that he was alive, especially Fox, because Peppy was the closest thing Fox had to his father; and Slippy broke down into happy tears when he heard Peppy's voice on the communicators. This brightened their moods, but...that was not lasting long.

"...Crap...I'm low on fuel." said Fox as he glanced at his fuel meter.

"So am I." croaked Slippy.

"Same here." said Falco, with a grunt as he hammered the control panel of his battered Arwing.

"...I'm OUT of fuel." said Peppy wearily.

"ROB! What is the closest planet that we can land on for refueling?" asked Fox as he stopped his boosters, and the rest of the team followed suit, and came to a halt.

"Scanning...Sauria is the closest planet." came ROB's monotone voice.

"By how far?" asked Slippy.

"2 Astronomical Units."

"So...when will we be there?" asked Falco.

"Zero hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds, with current rate of speed" replied ROB.

Peppy glanced backwards at ROB.

"Now why do you say that?" asked the hare.

"No fuel for this pod." replied ROB.

"Ahhh! I should have known that!" screamed Peppy.

"We can tow the pod!" suggested Slippy.

"But, we don't have much fuel ourselves, and towing will double the amount of fuel needed...I doubt we will get past an A.U. before we run out of fuel." said Fox gloomily.

"So what will we do then? We can't just float out here forever!" said Falco with a hint of fear in his voice.

A voice sounded off of the communicators in Fox's, Slippy's, and Falco's Arwings, and Peppy's Great Fox escape pod. "You guys...You jump to the worst conclusion way too often..."

All four of them looked out of their cockpit windows. A very slow moving Arwing was approaching them, with a blue vixen inside waving at them.

"Krystal!" gasped Peppy. "I-I thought that you were not here!"

Krystal frowned, stopped waving, and turned on her communication screen to look at Peppy.

"And why would you think that?" she asked crossly.

"You've been silent for so long, we assumed that you flew off some where to do something." said Slippy, who had turned on his communicator before Krystal. "Well...that was what I was thinking."

"Eh, thats about what I was thinking too." said Falco as he placed his feet on the control panel of the Arwing.

Fox stayed silent. He also realized that he completely forgot about Krystal after the others started stating that what he said was 'lame'. He quickly dismissed the thought to the back of his mind before Krystal could sense it.

"Nope, I didn't leave you guys to go off some place." said Krystal as she tilted her Arwing to go over them. "I was using as little fuel as possible to catch up to the rest of you."

"For what reason did you use so little fuel?" asked Fox as he looked upwards, where he saw the bottom of Krystal's Arwing fly over him.

"So I can tow your Arwings and that pod." replied Krystal as she tilted her Arwing down to get on the same level as the others.

"But, we are all low on fuel, and Peppy is out of it! How are you going to tow us 2 A.U.?" said Fox as he tried to fire his boosters to go next to Krystal, but, his fuel tank was completely dry now, and the Arwing only groaned.

Before Krystal could respond, Falco spoke up. "Also, aren't you low on fuel Krystal? Even after you flew so slow to catch up to us?" He lifted his feet off of the control panel to look at Krystal in his communication screen more clearly.

"No, I am not low on fuel."

"How?" said Fox, Slippy, Falco, and Peppy simultaneously.

"I wasn't controlling my Arwing when we were escaping the Aparoid home planet. I shot a grapple line from the Arwing and latched it onto Fox's left wing. He basically towed me out. When the planet exploded, I let go of Fox, and I started to slow down to only 2 MPH. Because I did that, I have enough fuel to tow all four of you to Sauria."

"For some reason I think you're lying." muttered Falco; he said it in a low voice so Krystal wouldn't hear it, but, he thought it when he said it.

"Oh? Why do you think that Falco?" asked Krystal as she looked at him with questioning eyes.

Falco jumped at her question; he didn't expect her to read his statement. He quickly made an answer. "Well, if you were way behind us, how did you know that we need to go to Sauria? As far as I can tell, you were out of the range of our communicators."

"Falco, Falco..." muttered Krystal while she shook her head. "I scanned the area around here to find the nearest planet, BEFORE we went to capture the aparoid base."

"Wow." was all Fox could say, and Falco didn't respond to her.

"So...ah, you have enough fuel...to tow us all...all the way to Sauria?" asked a bewildered Slippy.

"I think I already answered that question."

With that gruff remark, Krystal hit a blue button in the cockpit, and a small hole just above the main engine on the back of her Arwing opened. Out of this hole four steel wires flew out of it. One wire attached itself to the nose of Fox's Arwing, another to Slippy's, one to Falco's Arwing, and the last one to the antenna on Peppy's pod.

Krystal started to fire the engines, but Slippy found something alarming. He noticed that with four wires spread out as they were, the stress on the inside of Krystal's Arwing will tear it apart from the inside.

"Krystal! If you start boosting with the wires like this, it will rip the Arwing apart from the inside!" he exclaimed as he shot some spit onto his screen when he was yelling.

"As I said before, you jump to the worst conclusion." came the vixen's reply.

The left G-Diffuser engines flared up, and started boosting. Krystal's Arwing went into a counterclockwise barrel roll. This made the wires twirl together, and at the hole at the back of the Arwing, the wires formed what was like a single wire. The four other ships were pulled closer together as their wires combined.

"That better Slippy?" asked Krystal into her screen as she stopped spinning.

Slippy was speechless for a couple seconds then managed to reply, "Er, yeah, thats better. The stress should be reduced now..."

"Meh...I could have thought of that too." muttered Falco as he folded his arms and closed his eyes for a nap.

"Yeah...then why did I feel fear come off of you Falco in waves when you guys were saying that you had no fuel?" asked Krystal as she started boosting forward, with the Arwings and pod following her.

Falco didn't answer.

"Uh huh...thats what I thought." scoffed Krystal. "ROB! With the current speed, when will we reach Sauria?"

"Calculating...we will reach Sauria in 7 hours, 39 minutes, and 37 seconds with current rate of speed." answered ROB.

"Man...thats one hell of a wait..." muttered Fox as he took off his vest to cool himself off.

"Yep, and that's why I'm going to take a nap!" said Slippy while he bounced around in his Arwing to get into a comfortable position for his nap.

"Yeah, I'm going to hit the sac too." yawned Peppy. "ROB, power down all systems except the indicator that we have reached Sauria, and enemy alert system."

"Affirmative. Powering down. Leaving alert systems for arrival at Sauria and incoming enemies active." said ROB, and all of the lights on his body turned off.

"Well, talk to y'all when I wake up...if I do." chuckled Peppy, and he gathered a blanket and curled up in his chair. Within a few minutes, steady snoring could be heard coming from the pod.

Fox yawned. He really wanted to talk with Krystal, but his body was sore, and he needed to rest. He rolled up his vest into a ball, put it behind his head, layed his head on it, and fell asleep within a couple seconds.

A few hours pass.

"...A nacc ro kxo keec ke hojihhosk xam...A nacc ro xaj wiato ad kxaj wucup0...udt A nacc ujjajk xam ke huwo nuh ed ucc caladw roadwj..."

Krystal's voice woke Fox up. He was having a nice dream about him and Krystal on Sauria with a son, and he didn't want that dream to fade, but Krystal kept repeating that sentence so Fox opened his eyes.

His communication screen was still on. Rubbing his eyes, Fox looked at the other team members.

Falco was flipped over on his chair, with a little drool coming out of his open beak. It looked like Slippy had fallen to the floor of his cockpit, because Fox could barely see the top of his head. Peppy was still in the same position as he was when he fell asleep, and ROB was standing motionless against the wall. But when he looked at Krystal, he instantly became horrified.

She was still sitting on her chair and had her legs crossed over it. She had her paws laid over her knees, and was staring straight out in front of her...with glowing blood red eyes, as if she was possessed by a red Krazoa spirit.

Fox frantically turned off the connections to the other team members. When he had the connections off, he tapped Krystal's head on his screen and the picture of her enlarged, and a message on the bottom of the screen showed: 'Connection with Krystal active. Connection with Falco, Slippy, and Peppy not active'.

"Krystal!" Fox yelled to his communicator.

The red pupils in her eyes looked down at her screen, stared at the image of Fox in it, then her eyes turned back to turquoise.

"Fox? Why are you yelling?" she asked calmly.

"You were saying something in Saurian in a very eerie voice and your eyes were glowing red!" shouted Fox while putting his paws on either side of the communication screen.

"What?" said Krystal with a confused tilt of her head. Fox repeated what he said.

"Fox, I have no idea what your talking about." said Krystal with a shake of her head. "I've been meditating thats all."

Fox was about to argue when she cut across him.

"I'm telling you, there is nothing to worry about. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to my meditation." and she turned off her end of the communication connection.

Fox punched his cockpit window, in the direction of Krystal's Arwing. Why didn't she believe him? It was extremely odd that she didn't remember what she was saying...

"What _was_ she saying?" Fox thought aloud.

He turned around and picked up his vest. He unrolled it and opened the right hand pocket then took out his old translator when he was on Sauria for the first time. He turned on the translator and pushed the 'Options' icon on his communication screen. He tapped the 'Recored Statements' option and pushed on Krystal's icon.

A line on the screen showed that the recording was 7 seconds long. Fox pushed play, and tapped his translator to make it record. Krystal's sentence started playing.

"_...A nacc ro kxo keec ke hojihhosk xam...A nacc ro xaj wiato ad kxaj wucup0...udt A nacc ujjajk xam ke huwo nuh ed ucc caladw roadwj..._"

The translator beeped, and replayed the message in Cornerian.

"_...I will be the tool to resurrect him...I will be his guide in this galaxy...and I will assist him to rage war on all living beings..._"

**Note: Yes, I can bet you didn't like the fact I left you hanging on a cliff (HAHA! I got revenge on you -VG-All-Star-!) but this chapter has a good hint on what is going to happen later.**

**Yet again, more reviews are wanted. Also, thank you SF Ghost for that review (it helped a lot) and thanks to Dwight House for creating the Saurian Translator (you can guess it's purpose...)**


	8. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I do not and will never own Star Fox; no matter how much I would like to.**

**Note: I know I've been slow. I don't like the fact I am slow. I am doing my best to keep updating this fic, but, school-is-too-demanding. I'm spending as much time as I can on this story. Eh...that's all I have to say.**

**Lets-a-go!**

The Catastrophe of War

Chapter 7

"...You've done well my apprentice..."

"Thank you master."

Fox froze when he heard two voices echo around the hallway corner. His breathing started to speed up, and his thoughts became more uncertain. He was walking down the Krazoa Palace's third floor, in the giant cylinder room. He was going to turn left into a tiny room where he had released a Krazoa Spirit before, when the two voices sounded around the same corner.

Fox doesn't remember how he got here, or why he was in the Krazoa Palace in the first place. All he knew now was that he needed to either find out who was speaking, or run out of the palace as fast as he could to avoid getting seen.

"Maybe I should leave..." Fox muttered to himself, as he took a small step back.

"_No!_" rang a second voice in this head. "_Those two sound like they are plotting something. You need to find out what._"

"What if I get caught?" mused Fox.

"_The 'what if' statements...they cloud your better judgment. What happened to you? You weren't like this on Sauria. Go look, and see what is going on._" repeated the stronger voice.

"'Curiosity killed the cat...'" groaned Fox, whacking at his head.

"_But you're not a cat, are you_?"

Fox sighed. If those two were plotting something, it would eventually affect Lylat, so he might was well look into it now. He quickly decided if he was spotted, he'd turn around, and sprint like never before. Fox took another step toward the room, but he heard the second voice again, so he stopped a foot from the corner.

"Master...where shall we head next? Katina hasn't seen or felt your almighty presence yet..."

Fox's jaw slowly dropped when he recognized that eerie voice, and it was echoing like the voice was spoken in a tunnel. He tiptoed toward the corner, and, ignoring the other person's reply, peered around the corner.

Fox clapped his paw over his mouth to keep himself from screaming. There was a cloaked figure with it's back to him, with huge demon-looking wings sprouting from it's back. It was about six and a half feet tall, with two feet long spikes poking out of it's shoulders. The look of the skin on the wings gave Fox a mental image of what the figure would be if it didn't have it's cloak on, but Fox didn't want to think about it too much, so he dismissed the thought. Fox stared at the massive figure in fear for a second or two then tried to locate the source of the other voice. The other person wasn't behind the cloaked figure, or any where around it, so Fox assumed she was in front of him.

"Master, look at this chart that I made for you. It shows all of the minions and pawns you now possess for your cause, and those who are resisting you."

"Ah...very good...I assume this is it?" said the cloaked figure pointing with one of it's hands, which was covered in the cloak, toward a wall to his right.

"Yes."

The figure stepped toward the east wall; reviling the person in front of him. Fox would have yelled out right then and there, if he didn't have his paw firmly over his mouth.

Standing in front of the Krazoa head, was a red-furred vixen. Her muscles where bulging slightly under her red jumpsuit, giving her an appearance like she exercised to a level in which she looked like wrestler. Her long red hair was tied into a ponytail, the many hairs that make up her pelt were moving like they were tiny flames, and her eyes burned with red fire. Her flaming tail was untied, making it fluff out, and was flicking back and forth with gratitude. She had a strange aura around her, like she was giving off an evil light. Her front white fur was marked with blood stains, and her fists were clenched.

Fox stared at her for a moment or two, then moved back around the corner, his breathing issuing in silent gasps. He couldn't believe what had happened to her. She wasn't supposed to be like this. After that prophecy...why didn't he talk to her about it? He could have prevented this. And, now...It seemed like she was converted for good.

Fox started sweating so much, his fur was soon drenched. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead, and risked another peek at the vixen.

She had moved behind the cloaked figure again, but Fox could still see the back half of her body. He stared at her blazing tail for a couple seconds and jumped slightly when the cloaked figure spook.

"This is excellent...all of Lylat, expect Katina, is now my army. Katina will be no problem to take over. But, if the Star Fox team survives...they may pose a slight threat. They need to be terminated."

"Of course..." replied the vixen, with a slight bow.

Fox's eyes widened with fear. He needed to get to Falco, Slippy, and Peppy and warn them. He needed to get out of here now, so he has a better fighting chance. The vixen's physical strength has seemed to multiplied one hundred times over, he wouldn't stand a chance here and now. Fox held his breath, and started taking very small steps away from the tiny room.

A single drop of sweat hit the smooth tiled floor. A sound like wind gusting around in the room followed. Fox, who's curiosity got the better of him, took fast steps back to the corner to see what it was.

The cloaked figure was still staring at the chart, but the vixen was no longer there.

"_Oh, no...she must have sensed the sweat hitting the ground. Get out of there. GET OUT OF THERE NOW!" _yelled the voice in his head.

Fox took a big step back, and pivoted on his extended right leg to turn around. When his head swung around, it slammed right into an extended paw, which grabbed his head and lifted him off the ground. Fox could barely see who grabbed him, but he could see a white muzzle, grinning broadly, showing razor sharp teeth.

"Now where do you think you're going Fox McCloud?" Fox saw the muzzle move as she spoke.

Fox couldn't muster up the strength to reply. The grip on his face and head was tightening, and he grunted in pain as his head started to throb.

"_This...ugnn...is nothing. I-I can stand this for many minutes...and the rest of the team...ughnn...will be here...Just hold on Fox..._" he thought subconsciously.

"Oh really?" said the red vixen, smirking slightly. "Ok then. Let's triple the pain."

Fox's eye's widened in alarm, and she turned him 90 degrees to his left. She clamped her other paw on the back of his head and squeezed with enough force to shatter bone. Fox let out a muffled yell of intense pain and the vixen just continued to squeeze harder. Fox felt her finger nails digging into his skull, and started flailing at her to try to free himself.

"NO! LET-ME-GO!" shouted Fox as loud as he could as he missed a punch to her gut.

"Fox!"

The vixen's finger's pierced his skin, and he felt her red-hot fur touch his skull directly. His eye's widened more, instantly watered up, and he let out another bloodcurdling scream, his thrashing gradually grew weaker.

"Fox! Wake up!"

A huge bang shook the Palace, and through the pain, Fox realized that kind of explosion could not have made the Palace shake that much.

"Fox! Come ON! Wake up!" and the Palace shook violently, and acted like it was being knocked over. The vixen threw Fox over the ledge, into the cylinder pit in the middle of the room. Fox tried to maneuver himself to go over one of the fans, but he missed each one.

"No..." moaned Fox as the ground came an inch from his face; he closed his eyes tightly, and braced for the fatal impact.

But, it never came. Fox opened his eyes. He saw a black surface above him, and started to thrash around for a second or two before he realized where he was.

He was laying upside down in his Arwing with his head under the control panel, and his feet on the seat head rest. His heart was beating uncontrollably, and his breathing was fast and shallow. He lowered his legs down, grabbed his knees, placed his paw on the wall of the Arwing, and pushed. He turned like a clock hand on his back, then pushed himself back onto his chair in the right position.

The terrifying prophecy that Krystal was repeating a few hours before was still playing off of the recorder, and the translator was still translating it. Fox quickly turned off the recording, and erased it. He didn't want anyone else, even Krystal, to know what she was saying.

The line that showed the recording was 7 seconds long disappeared, and when the message stopped, the translator stopped playing as well. Fox let out a long sigh, and ran his fingers through his head fur.

"_That dream..._" thought Fox, as he scratched the area where the vixen's fingers had penetrated his skull. "_It felt so real...the sweat soaking my fur...the fear of seeing that cloaked figure...and...the pain of-_" and he stopped himself before he thought any more because...

"Fox? You all right?" asked Krystal off of her Arwing communicator.

"Ye-yes. I'm fine" stammered Fox.

Krystal eyed his expression carefully. "Ok...but if you need to talk to me about something, you can always ask me about that dream of yours."

"Right...I will do that. But not now. What was that big explosion that I felt in..." his voice trailed off.

"It was me ramming your Arwing to wake you up!" said Krystal crossly. "You were yelling, and thrashing your head off in there!"

Fox didn't respond to that.

"But that's not the real reason why I tried to wake you up." Her voice hardened. "We...we've arrived at Sauria."

"We arrived at Sauria?" said Fox is a excited voice, leaning over to look out of his Arwing.

With those words, a monotone voice sounded off of the communicators in all of the Arwings.

"Destination reached."

"Arruuughh!" came a yell from the pod and a small dull thud was then heard. "Ugh...ouch...that's going to give me a headache later..." muttered Peppy as he picked himself off of the floor after he had fallen off of his chair.

Slippy opened his eyes. He saw the controls 'point-blank' range in front of him, let out a squeak of surprise and pushed himself off of them. "We're there?" he asked sleepily as he adjusted himself on his seat.

"Finally! I really need to stretch my legs!" exclaimed Falco, who flipped himself over on his chair so he was facing the right way.

"Yeah, we're there." said Fox darkly; he had his face pressed against his window to look down at the planet. "But I don't think you'll be as excited as you are now when you see it."

The others looked down at Sauria simultaneously.

"Oh...my...God..." muttered Peppy.

Sauria, which was placed back together 2 years ago by Fox, was splitting up again, but more violently this time. It seemed like each and every place that Fox visited on his adventure on Sauria was disconnected from the planet's surface. But not only that, there were dinosaur bodies floating away from, and revolving the satellites.

From where they were at, the team could see Thorntail Hollow floating next to the Moon Mountain Pass with several Thorntails flying away from their home, Cape Claw spinning in place with a couple of Hightops revolving around it, Lightfoot Village revolving around the Walled City, Lightfoots and Earthwalkers floating aimlessly nearby, and...

"How...how did _that_...of all things get disconnected from the planet?" whispered Krystal.

The closest piece of the broken planet floating near them was the Krazoa Palace, and it was glowing a very frightening red.

"I can't believe this...What happened? I'm positive that the aparoids didn't cause this to happen!" said Fox angrily.

"It had to be something else Fox." muttered Falco.

"But what?" asked Slippy who was staring at Sauria with huge eyes filled with fear.

"That!" yelled Krystal, pointing towards something near the Walled City.

Fox, Slippy, Falco, and Peppy looked towards the Walled City, which was not too far off from the Palace. Something was just coming around the City, and it was glowing a brilliant red.

"What...what is that thing? It looks like..." began Peppy.

"A Krazoa..." finished Fox. Peppy shot him a look over the communication screen showing that he was annoyed with Fox finishing his statement for him. "ROB! Analyze that spirit!"

"Affirmative."

Two minutes passed without anyone speaking, even though Slippy sneezed half way through.

"Analysis complete. The object is the "brother" of the Krazoa Spirits, the Spirits of Peace." came ROB's conclusion, "The spirit is one of the Krezoa, the Spirits of War."

Fox's jaw dropped. He instantly remembered what Krystal said a few hours ago, and his dream.

"..._and I will assist him to rage war on all living beings_..."

_'To rage war...the statement that Krystal said must have something to do with these Krezoa...now that I look at it closely...that red is the exact red that Krystal's eyes were glowing...and...the color of her fur...'_ Fox thought as he stared at the Krezoa circling the Walled City.

_'What was that?'_

Fox gasped. With the shock of seeing Sauria in this condition, seeing the Krezoa, and what it truly is, he completely forgot that Krystal would read his thoughts. He very slowly averted his eyes down at her picture in the communication screen. She was leaning toward the screen, staring at Fox with narrowed eyes.

_'Its-its nothing Krystal.' _thought Fox with a frantic shack of his head.

_'Oh, really? Then why do you seem so concerned about this "statement" that you think I said a couple of hours ago? And the color of 'her' fur? Who is this 'her' anyway? ' _shot back Krystal with an angry jerk of her head.

_'...Why don't we talk about it later...' _Fox evasively thought.

_'Why don't we talk about it now?_ _If this is troubling you, then maybe I could help you...isn't that what you said to me before the aparoid attacks? "If you don't talk about it, then you won't feel better" Why aren't you following your own advice?'_ Krystal leaned back and crossed her arms.

'_Krystal...now is not the time...the others will notice what we are doing...'_

_'So what if they notice?'_

_'I would care if they did. I don't want them to know about that. We can talk about it on the surface of Sauria, then I'll have all the time I'd need to explain it to you._' thought Fox desperately.

Krystal glared at him for a couple seconds, then gave him a short nod. _'Fine. You'd better tell me the full meaning of your concern then Fox.'_

_'I will.'_

Fox tore his eyes away from Krystal's face to look down at Sauria. They needed somewhere to land to re-fuel, and if the Krezoa is causing war between the dinosaurs, there may not be any place safe on the surface. He looked closely at the main body of Sauria.

Half of the planet was covered in craters, where the disconnected parts of the planet used to be. From this altitude, it seemed that lots of the flora of the planet was burned into a wasteland. Even Ice Mountain, which was lucky enough to stay connected to the surface, became an elevated desert. None of these areas looked safe, even though there didn't seem to be any hostile beings in the wastelands, there were several explosions going off every few seconds all over the surface of the planet. Fox sighed.

"Any of you see where we could land for re-fueling?" asked Fox to the rest of the team.

Peppy's head disappeared from view of the communicator. "No, I don't see any place suitable for landing. So many burned areas..." he stated when he looked down at Sauria.

Falco shrugged. "I honestly don't care where we land."

Slippy didn't say anything, which Fox took as a "I don't know...".

"Krystal?" asked Fox. "You see any where?"

"No, I don't see any area in which we could land safely. But just because this side of the planet is burned doesn't mean the other is." she said matter-of-factually.

"But, your Arwing MUST be low on fuel by now, so you can't tow us to the other side, and we don't have enough time for Sauria to rotate so the other side would face us." said Slippy.

"Then I'll scan it myself." said Krystal roughly.

She placed her paws together into a hand sign again. Her index and middle fingers were placed together, pointing straight up, with her ring and pinky fingers curled over the top of the opposite paw. She muttered something in Saurian, and her paws glowed a faint blue. Krystal closed her eyes tightly and tightened her paws over each other more.

Falco was going to interrupt her, but Krystal flicked her tail up and placed her tail-tip over her screen in a gesture showing not to interrupt. Falco muttered something irritably.

A few minutes later, Krystal canceled the hand sign and let out a sigh. "All of the planet's surface is barren. The only life I sensed was possessed dinosaurs. All of them are hostile, and they would attack us as soon as we land on the surface. There is no 'safe haven' in which we can re-fuel."

There was a horrified silence after Krystal finished speaking.

"Did you scan the floating pieces of the planet?" asked a terrified Fox.

"Yes." responded Krystal. "But, the only area in which I did not scan was Krazoa Palace. The Krezoa blocked my telepathic scan."

"Then that must be where they have a 'base' of some kind." said Peppy. "I bet if we land there, we could get to the bottom of this catastrophe."

"I'm fine with that." Slippy added. "I never been on Krazoa Palace before; I'd like to see it."

"Like I said..." started Falco.

"You don't care." Krystal causally finished his sentence. "We know."

"So we all good?" asked Peppy. "We can land on the roof of Krazoa Palace? ...Fox?"

Fox was staring out into space, lost in his thoughts. Krazoa Palace...he didn't want to go there, even though that was the place where he first saw Krystal. He was simply too scared of the sacred place at the moment because of his dream. His head throbbed again, and he rubbed it vigorously. He was also concerned for Krystal. He didn't want her to go there because of what could happen...

"Fox! Can we please land at Krazoa Palace?" yelled Slippy. "I really need to use the bathroom!"

Fox shook himself. If they landed on the Palace, they could find out what was going on here, and they could re-fuel so one of the team members could go back to Corneria and ask for reinforcements. He just has to keep an extra eye on Krystal.

"Yes." said Fox. "Lets descend to the Palace and see what is going on."

"Ok!" exclaimed Krystal and she fired her boosters. Her Arwing moved forward quickly, then slowed considerably when the weight of the other Arwings was placed onto the wires.

Fox got lost in his thoughts again. "_Ok. All we need to do is look around, find out whats wrong, re-fuel our Arwings, and go back to Corneria for reinforcements; there is no reason to linger here. Besides...I can't let her be taken by them..._"

What Fox failed to notice again, was that Krystal heard every syllable.

_"'I can't let her be taken by them'? What does he mean by that?"_ she thought to herself. "_Wait...a...minute...he canceled his thoughts when he thought 'the pain of-'...The pain of what? 'The color of her fur...' The color of...who's...fur..._" Krystal gasped silently. "_What other female is around here? There is only one! And thats...me! What did Fox see? Why is he so concerned about me having my fur a different color and me being taken by someone? Well, I can understand me being taken, but my fur color? I'm going to find out why he is acting like this as soon as we land at Krazoa Palace." _she concluded as the Arwings were engulfed in flames as the team entered the tiny atmosphere surrounding Krazoa Palace.

**Note: Bah...ok. The hand sign Krystal made to scan Sauria was the hand sign for the 'Transformation Jutsu' from Naruto (the T.V. show; I think the sign is different in the anime comic...) I put that note because I don't think I did a good job of describing how it looks; whats up there is the best I could do.**

**Chapter 8 coming in what...a couple of weeks? -.-**

**Oh, Krystal is NOT completely evil (I hope he meant evil). What do I mean by that? That question will be answered later...**


	9. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I am a simple writer producing this story for entertainment. I do not own the video game series, Star Fox, nor any of it's characters. Star Fox is property of Nintendo. NOT Link McCloud. Got it?**

**Note: Well, hi! It's been a while huh; just about 2 months. Sorry 'bout that. I hit a writer's block (if anyone didn't notice) and I was very, very (very) slowly working on the chapter you are about to read. I believe that I won't have a problem with a block again. I have surpassed a difficult part of the story, and the rest of "The Catastrophe of War" should be suspenseful action. But, there are no guarantees.**

**Now, read on, my fellow readers.**

The Catastrophe of War

Chapter 8

As Krystal pulled the rest of the team into the safe-to-breathe atmosphere that surrounded Krazoa Palace, Fox noticed that it was raining again, just like it was when he was on Sauria for the first time. But this time around, the rain had a red tint to the drops, and instead of the bright white lightning bolts, they were flashes of blinding red electricity. Fox blankly stared out of his cockpit window, faintly thinking what they had to do to save Sauria again.

The rest of the team seemed to have similar reactions. Slippy was hyperventilating, Falco, for reasons best known to himself, was punching the cushion of his seat like there was no tomorrow, and Peppy had his paws together and was praying. Krystal, however, didn't show too much remorse; she had an expression of extreme concentration, didn't show any concern in any part of her body language, and was muttering, inaudibly, under her breath.

Before the team exited the clouds, everyone heard an unexpected gasp come from Krystal. They all asked her what was wrong, and she just said to wait. When the Arwings and escape pod emerged out of the dense gray clouds above Krazoa Palace, the team still didn't know what was troubling the vixen. Besides the red glow coming off of the Palace, there seemed to be nothing wrong with it. Fox asked Krystal what was wrong again; he couldn't see anything too alarming. She replied in saying to look at the roof of the palace. At first, no one could see anything wrong, due to the fact that they were too far above the Palace. But when they were one hundred yards above it, Falco spotted what was upsetting Krystal.

Dozens, upon dozens of motionless Earthwalkers littered the smooth tiled floor. Many were missing limbs, about five of the dinosaurs were decapitated, it seemed some had internal organs ripped out, and each of the dead or dying Earthwalkers were laying in a huge pond of blood.

Fox recoiled like he got slapped in the face. "Krystal! Get over there-"

"Fox. You yelling at me won't make me go any faster. This Arwing is going as fast as it can when pulling you three." interrupted Krystal bluntly.

Fox was about to shout again when Krystal glanced at him over the communicator; Fox bit down on his tongue, making it bleed slightly.

When the team neared the ledge of the roof, Fox saw that one lone Earthwalker was standing, and very, very slowly walking toward them. He couldn't identify it from this distance, so he asked Krystal.

"Hey...Do you have any...idea...who...Why are you crying Krystal?" asked Fox as he noticed the steady flow of tears coming out of Krystal's eyes.

She shook her head wildly, tears flying off of her face, and looked at Fox through her communicator, with wide, horrified eyes. Her mouth started moving as though she was saying something, but no sound came out.

"Let me be more specific." Krystal's scared look was making Fox extremely worried. "What are his or her injuries, and what is his or her name, if you know it." he asked with a very shaky voice.

Krystal swallowed visibly. "He... has a broken leg...a fractured skull...a broken jaw...a failing heart because of massive blood loss from fatal wounds...one of his...eyes were ripped out of it's socket..."

"And who is he...?" asked Slippy.

Krystal stared at Fox, teary eye to eye. "Oh, Fox...that dying Earthwalker...is...is...it's...Tricky..."

Fox's mouth slowly opened in horrified astonishment. He clamped his paws tightly together, and started rocking back in forth in his seat, while staring at the figure of Tricky slowly limp towards them. His back left leg was the one that was broken, and he was dragging it behind him, each step making him wince. He had massive gashes on his flanks, which were bleeding so badly, Fox had to look away. Tricky's jaw was split in two right down the middle, and his right eye socket was bleeding steadily.

Falco was staring at the slow moving Earthwalker with an expression that he rarely has on his face; pity, and Peppy was doing the same. After looking at Tricky for a couple seconds, the hare got out of his chair, and went to the back of the escape pod, to look for a medical aid kit. Slippy, predictably, was crying uncontrollably. Fox, who was still rocking in his seat, gave an order.

"Lets...lets go down there...see what we can do...and...and find out who did this, and what...we can do to help..." he said in a dull voice.

Krystal nodded faintly, and boosted forward, yet she didn't see the reason why they should go down there; Tricky was in no condition to talk.

When Krystal's Arwing was fully over the top of the roof, she pushed a green button in the cockpit, and the wires that were towing the other vehicles disconnected; they swirled in the air, tearing away from each other, and they were pulled back into Krystal's Arwing. Fox's, Slippy's, and Falco's Arwings twitched when they were disconnected, and slowly lowered to the roof of the Palace, with a low, loud hiss. Peppy's pod, however, stayed airborne.

"How...?" asked Slippy as he looked back at the pod, while unbuckling his seatbelt.

Peppy was scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. "Eheh...I forgot that this pod only needs Arwing fuel to fire weaponry systems. The thrusters are powered by batteries, which run off of hydrogen and I have a good...supply...of...the gas..." his voice trailed off as Krystal shot him a glare over their communication screens.

"At times like these I think the phrase 'When you get older, the mind is the first thing to go' is actually true; I could have saved so much fuel if you knew that earlier Peppy."

Peppy only smiled, and ROB was ramming himself into the wall repeatedly, seemingly punishing himself for forgetting the batteries.

"Enough of that." said Fox roughly. "We need to help Tricky."

With that, he pulled two blasters out of the storage compartment under the Arwing controls, and attached them to his belt. When Slippy noticed this, he asked why Fox was arming himself.

"The creatures that killed all of these Earthwalkers, and injured Tricky that badly may still be in the Palace. I don't want to be caught in an ambush unarmed."

Falco, upon hearing Fox's words, dived into his storage compartment, and grabbed two machine guns, while Slippy rummaged frantically in his to find a sniper rifle.

When Fox was reaching for the lever that opened the cockpit window, he noticed that Krystal hadn't gotten any weapons out of her storage, and she was about to get out of her Arwing.

"Krystal?" she looked at him, "Aren't you going to get any firearms?"

"No, I'm not." before Fox could ask why, she added, "I never liked using them. I'll just use my staff."

"Well, ok..." muttered Fox. "But just take a standard blaster, just in case."

Krystal shrugged, retrieved a blaster out of the storage compartment, and opened the cockpit. She jumped out swiftly, with her unextended staff in her right paw, and a blaster attached to her belt. As soon as she landed on the soaked tile of the roof, she started sprinting towards Tricky, slipping slightly on the wet tile.

Fox opened his cockpit. When it was open, wind and rain blasted at his body. His fur became soaked and gathered a very small red tint, and the wind shot him in the face, momentarily making him incapable to breathe. He turned his head away from the wind, gulped down two big breaths of air, and jumped out of his cockpit. Upon landing, he slipped, and fell to his side, banging his head, hard, on the tile.

Fox let out a muffled scream, and clutched his head tightly, while rolling around in extreme pain. It was like getting hit in the head with 10 fully charged blaster shots at the same time, at the exact same place, and every second afterwards it felt like he was getting hit in the head with a sledge hammer. He rolled around on the tile, sometimes bumping into an Earthwalker carcass, or a small ledge on the roof. After a couple minutes of dealing with the pain, he realized he almost received a concussion, and was thankful that he still had his head on his shoulders.

Fox raised his head slightly, and opened his eyes. Through his blurry vision, he saw an outline of Krystal backing away from Tricky, with her now extended staff still in her right paw, and a raised, charging blaster in her left. Fox became confused, so confused in fact, he almost forgot about the fact that he almost got a concussion, and his mind filled with the question, "Why...?"

He pushed himself to a sitting position, and shakily stood up, with one paw on his throbbing head. He heard a faint voice and a light tap on his waist.

"Fox, are you ok?" asked Slippy as he prodded Fox.

Falco added his concern. "Yeah man. When we saw hit your head on the ground like that we thought you were dead. That kind of blow can kill someone...when we saw you roll around like that, we were relieved but still...whoa." he added when Fox swayed and nearly fell down to the ground again; the only thing that stopped him was that Slippy was holding him up with two hands pressed up against Fox's back.

"I'm-I'm fine. I...I just need to find out why..." Fox pointed up at Krystal, who was still backing away from the advancing Tricky, to finish his sentence.

"I don't know why she would back away from Tricky." grunted Slippy, as he pushed Fox on to his own feet. "Didn't they become friends when we came to Sauria during the Apariod invasion?"

"Why don't you ask her with your thoughts Fox?" suggested Falco quietly as he pointed the two machine guns toward Tricky; Slippy took his sniper rifle off of his back, and hoisted the rifle up to his shoulder and took aim at Tricky.

"Ok..._Krystal, why are you-_"

"_This isn't Tricky." _interrupted Krystal fiercely.

"_What? Of course that's Tricky! Look at the crown on his head! What other Earthwalker would wear that? And you even identified him as Tricky as we were approaching the Palace!"_

"_Let me be more critical. Tricky is no longer in control of his body. I think he has been possessed by a Krezoa." _Krystal thought as she glanced backwards briefly.

"_Why didn't you figure that out sooner; when we were approaching the Palace?" _asked Fox.

"_Like I said a while ago, the Krezoa can block my telepathic abilities. I could not tell that he was possessed."_

"_But being possessed isn't too bad right? I mean, we were possessed and we were ok."_

"_This is not like when we were possessed by a Krazoa, just having them in our bodies to be transported. No...the Krezoa can fully possess the mind and body of it's victim, and have them attack the victim's allies against their will."_

"_If you couldn't sense that a Krezoa was in control of him, why can you tell now?"_

"_His eyes, and his thought patterns...continuously saying some...thing...Oh, my God..."_

"_What? What is it?"_

"_N-nothing. Just...just start charging your blasters; he won't just fall over dead with a simple blast in the side."_

Fox's blurred vision was starting to become normal again, and when he could clearly see what was in front of him, he saw what Krystal's concern about Tricky's eyes. His eyes were glowing a deep red, just like how Krystal's were when she was back in her Arwing, and the same color as the Krezoa Spirits.

"Fox?" came Slippy's voice. "Why are we going to shoot Tricky?"

"...Krystal thinks that Tricky is possessed by a Krezoa. Look at his eyes. That is the same red that the Krezoa glow." even though Fox was concerned about what Krystal heard in the possessed Tricky's mind, he dismissed the thought so he could concentrate on the moment.

"Thats just great." said Falco roughly. "What are we supposed to do? Wait here and let him kill us, or blast the hell out of him?"

"No...I think we should try to reason with him...see if we can get the Krezoa Spirit's control to slip before either of us do any damage to the other." said Fox as he took one blaster off of his belt.

Falco and Slippy didn't say anything.

"Fox!"

Peppy's voice made Fox jump; he had forgotten that the hare was still here.

"Hm? What is it Peppy?" asked Fox as he started to charge his blaster when Tricky came within 100 feet of them.

"I know I'm rusty with the field work, so I don't think there is anything of use I could do down there. What can I do to help with this dilemma?" asked Peppy. "Remember, this pod's weapon systems don't work."

Fox thought for a second. "You said that the boosters on that thing still function right?"

"Yes."

"Good. Go back to Corneria, and get reinforcements."

Fox heard a small gasp come from Peppy. "But...but that's a 3 day flight! How long will you guys last in the Palace with limited supplies?"

"We are going to have to manage." said Falco gruffly.

"...Ok then...I'll go and get an army...I'll be back. And don't do anything stupid! YOU ONLY HAVE ONE LIFE TO LIVE!" yelled Peppy as he turned the pod towards the sky.

"We won't Peppy." said Fox. "Good luck."

"You too Fox." and the hare disconnected the com link.

Fox noticed Krystal's left ear twitch. She glanced backwards at Fox, and smiled lightly. Before Fox could ask, she had backed into line with the rest of the team, and had a finger up to her lips, telling Fox not to ask at this moment. Fox heard an engine rev, and looked back and up to see Peppy's pod fly away into the storm.

"You...why are you here…"

A menacing voice made Fox look back sharply in the direction of Tricky. The dinosaur had stopped 40 feet away from them, glaring at each of the team members in turn. And for some reason, he was staring at Krystal longer than the others. Slippy's entire body was shaking, Falco narrowed his eyes and tensed his grip on his machine guns, and Krystal raised her staff slightly.

"I…asked you a question…answer…" said Tricky; the sound of his voice had changed dramatically. Even though there was a small tint of his original voice in the background, there was a much louder, deeper, and machine-like sounding voice that was more prominent. He was in a stance as if he was going to charge at them at any second.

Fox stared at Tricky in extreme shock for a couple seconds, then gathered enough courage to speak.

"…Tricky? It's me, Fox! Don't you remember me?" said Fox in a desperate voice; he wasn't going to answer Tricky's question just yet. He wanted to get through to the real Tricky to ask about what happened to Sauria.

Tricky didn't respond but he tensed up more. Fox tried again.

"Tricky! It's me! Fox McCloud! Remember when I came here a year ago, and you adventured with me all over Sauria?"

Tricky started to growl; Slippy nearly dropped his rifle.

"Remember when we came here to help you with the Apariod invasion? And when you were taking me and Krystal back to our Arwings after-"

"_Fox."_

"_Not now Krystal." _thought Fox without looking back at her.

"_Yes, now. I just realized something that you need to know…something about the Krezoa's possessing ability."_

"_What is it then? We need all the advice we can get to get that spirit out of him. I need to ask the real Tricky something."_

"_That's just it…we can't ask Tricky anything ever again…"_

"_What…what do you mean by that?" _asked Fox, finally looking back at the vixen, who had the expression like someone just died.

Krystal sighed, slowly and sadly. "_After…after someone has been possessed by a Krezoa for over a week…the spirit…it eliminates it's host."_

"_No…then…that means…"_

"…_Even though his body is standing in front of us…the Tricky that we knew is dead."_

Fox turned his head slowly back to the Earthwalker in front of them. The dino was now snarling, and had his fangs bared. Fox started to take small steps backwards, while taking his other blaster off of his belt.

"What is it Fox?" asked Slippy. Falco watched Fox step backwards while keeping one keen eye on Tricky.

Fox shook his head, not believing that Tricky is dead. He couldn't be dead, he just couldn't.

"That's it…if you won't answer me…then I'll MAKE YOU ANSWER!!" yelled Tricky, and, despite his broken leg, he charged at the team.

Slippy screamed and dropped his rifle this time; Falco, without Fox's orders, opened fire on Tricky, but the plasma rounds just bounced off of him. Krystal threw her blaster behind her, and crouched with her staff in both paws. Fox didn't do a thing; he just stood there looking at Tricky with an expression showing that he was struggling with indecision.

When Tricky was about 10 feet from them, the team, expect Krystal, scattered; Fox and Falco ran off towards the area in which Krystal was held when Andross captured her, and Slippy quickly picked up his rifle and screamed all the way to the Arwings. When Tricky noticed that only Krystal had stood her ground, he smirked slightly, his jaw moving in ways that it shouldn't, and veered toward her.

"Krystal! Get out of his way!" yelled Fox, stopping a few feet from a ramp, and started back towards the vixen.

"_STAY BACK FOX!"_

Krystal's yelling voice in his mind made Fox stop in his tracks, and he nearly slipped again.

"YOU ARE OURS, VIXEN!" yelled Tricky, and he tilted his head forward so the horns on his head would go through Krystal's skull.

"NO!!" yelled Slippy, Falco and Fox simultaneously. At the exact moment when Tricky was going to make contact with Krystal, a bolt a lightning struck the rod on top of the Palace. The blast of red light blinded the others, and they could not see what had happened.

When Fox stopped seeing stars, he looked around frantically, and saw Falco flat on his back, with his eyes closed.

"Oh, crap...He must of got hit with some of the electricity from the bolt..." muttered Fox.

Fox moved towards to Falco to help him; he put his ear near his slightly open beak. He was breathing very slowly but he was out cold. Then he remembered Krystal's defensive effort to stop Tricky. Fox looked back where they should have collided. Tricky was still standing in the spot where Krystal was, with his head bowed, and Krystal was no where in site. Fox looked in the direction in which Krystal would have flown backwards from the impact. But, she was not there. Then he realized that with the amount of speed that Tricky was going, if he hit the vixen, she would have flown over the edge of the roof. Fox was about to run over to the edge when Slippy's voice sounded off of his wrist.

"F-Fox!"

"What?"

"Look!"

Fox squinted at the toad to see that he was pointing at Tricky. Fox looked at the dino again, and saw something very odd that he didn't notice before. A small, glowing purple gem encased in gold sticking out of the side of Tricky's body, blood dripping off of the end. He stared at it for a couple seconds and noticed a blue leather boot under Tricky's body. The gem disappeared. Tricky slowly fell to his side, reviling Krystal, in a stabbing stance, holding her blood-coated staff.

"What? Krystal!" shouted Fox when Tricky's body hit the ground with a dull thud.

"Haha! That was brilliant Krystal!" yelled Slippy into his communicator.

Fox and Slippy ran over to the vixen just as she was wiping the blood off of the end of her staff.

"How did you-" began Fox as Slippy prodded Tricky's body with the tip of his rifle.

"I side-stepped just before he hit me. In the split second in which he was passing me, I stabbed him in the heart with my staff, and you can see the result." said Krystal, tilting her head down the dinosaur's body.

Fox stared down at the dead dinosaur's seven and a half foot long body. Slowly, but surly, tears started to appear in his eyes.

"Oh, Fox." muttered Krystal sympathetically, and she put left arm over his shoulder just as Fox clamped his paws over his face.

"I-I can't b-believe that h-he's d-dead." sobbed Fox through is paws. "I-I just...c-can't..."

For some odd reason, Krystal couldn't think of any sympathetic words for Fox. Slippy shook his head; it's been a while since he saw Fox break down like that. Something caught his eye, and Slippy looked up.

"Uh, GUYS!"

Fox and Krystal looked beside them to see Slippy pointing his rifle just slightly above Tricky's body.

"What is it Slippy?" asked Krystal.

"LOOK!"

Fox and Krystal looked at Tricky; they let out a yelp simultaneously and jumped several feet backwards, Slippy scrambling after them. A Krezoa Spirit was coming out of a gash on his side, like something coming out of a narrow tube; it was rolled up in a tight cylinder. While it uncoiled, it kept a hard gaze at Fox, Krystal, and a trembling Slippy. Fox, in a zombie-like state, due to his grief for Tricky, raised his blasters at the floating Spirit. Krystal pointed the tip of her staff at the Krezoa, while charging a Fire Blast shot, and Slippy raised his rifle slowly.

The Krezoa's eyes' narrowed, and glared at each of them in turn. Then it looked back towards the prison area, and at the unconscious Falco.

"...Wait a minute..." muttered Krystal.

The Spirit looked back at the trio, and with the glint in it's red eyes; it showed that if it smile, it would be doing so right now. It did a back flip in the air, and flew rapidly towards Falco.

Fox and Krystal started to run forward; Slippy ran back to the Arwings.

"OH, NO YOU DON'T!" Fox yelled while charging both of his blasters. "YOU ARE NOT GOING TO USE ANOTHER ONE OF MY FRIENDS AGAINST-" Fox was cut off by Krystal grabbing his shoulder, and pulling him to a stop.

"Why did you-" Fox was cut off again when Krystal put one paw over his mouth, and the other pointing towards the sky. Fox looked up, and let out a muffled yell due to Krystal's paw over his mouth.

About fifty Krezoa Spirits were descending to the Palace roof, each with a gaze locked on to a dead Earthwalker. The two stunned foxes watched them go down and enter an Earthwalker's body, with a loud, high pitched hiss. When each of the Krezoas had entered the carcasses on the roof of the Palace, the dead dinosaurs' bodies glowed a deep red, and they twitched slightly.

"No they didn't..." said Krystal while staring at the dinosaurs on the ground.

"_I...I think they did." _thought Fox, and he raised his left blaster; his right arm was pinned to Krystal's side, because she wouldn't let go of him.

Fifty possessed Earthwalkers slowly rose to their feet, some having difficulty because of missing limbs. Their scales were blood red, and so were their eyes. The blood that was flowing out of their bodies stopped, and the wounds healed very quickly. And as Fox and Krystal stared at the resurrected Earthwalkers, they noticed with extreme horror that the ones with missing limbs were growing them back. Loud pops and snaps filled the air as legs were sprouting out of the Earthwalker's bodies; litter's of blood shot out of them when the legs formed.

"_Ugh..." _thought Fox. "_That's disgusting!"_

"It sure is." agreed Krystal.

The Krezoa that possessed Tricky was no where in site, and they looked up at the sky, and around the Earthwalkers, but couldn't see it.

"Oh, no..." came Slippy's voice off of the wrist communicators again; he was back in his Arwing, looking at the possessed dinosaurs with his sniper rifle scope.

Fox pushed Krystal off of him. "Did you find the Krezoa that possessed Tricky, Slippy?" asked Fox.

"...You can say that..."

"What do you mean by-Oh, shit!" gasped Fox; he realized what Slippy meant. Krystal seemed to know what the toad meant too.

Fox and Krystal turned around quickly. They noticed a figure walking down the ramp, through the crowd of red Earthwalkers. When it pushed it's way past the lead Earthwalkers, Fox's jaw dropped, and Krystal let out a low growl.

"So, let's see if you can manage to kill this bird as well, vixen." sneered a possessed Falco, with one machine gun pointed at a far off Slippy, and the other at Fox.

**Note: Yeah, thats all. I could have made it longer, but this is a good place to stop, so...I did. I don't have the slightest idea when I'll post Chapter 9, but it will be before the end of time, I can assure you that.**

**Just as a heads up, you'll be a 'wee' bit confused with some of the stuff in Chapter 9. It will be explained in chapters 10-11 I think...but, thats WAY far off in the future.**

**Oh...Tricky fans...DON'T-FLAME-ME FOR KILLING HIM! He was annoying anyway. No loss...I'm ready for the mob now.**

**ONE MORE THING! If I'm "slipping" (you know, getting worse) let me know politely. I'll be glad to punish myself for screwing up...wait...I-I mean fix the problems...yeah...**


	10. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I don't own Star Fox, and I'm glad I don't. Why? 'Cause if I did, it would suck, and we don't want that do we?**

**Note: I know, I know. You're thinking: "Wow that was quick.". Yes, it was, because since I posted the last chapter, I've been working on this one every day. I am determined not to have another writer's block. However, don't expect the next chapter to be as quick. Finals are in a couple weeks, so I need to spend more time studying if you know what I mean.**

**If you get confused with anything (which, I think you won't, if you catch on quickly) then ask me about what you are confused on. I'll PM you explaining the topic if you want me to do so.**

**Now, READ!**

The Catastrophe of War

Chapter 9

"_Great. Just great! What the hell am I supposed to do now?"_ thought Fox as his blasters reached the second level of charge power. He had them pointed at the avian, one aimed at his machine gun, the other directed at his head.

Falco's physical appearance, with the exception of his uniform, hadn't changed much. His former deep blue feathers had turned into a deep maroon, and his red eyes now blazed with the longing of combat and murder. The silver sides of Falco's uniform had turned into a deep red, just like the army of possessed Earthwalkers behind him; the other parts of his uniform had kept it's light red color, but the shoulder plates, instead of being rounded, were now finished with spikes. The Star Fox logo the arm of the uniform had changed into a Krezoa head, with a sword and axe crossed over it; his silver boots had turned into a copper color.

"Well? What are you going to do now, vixen?" sneered Falco, with a smirk and an upward tilt of his head, gazing at Krystal. "If you don't attack now, I'll take you away."

"Take her?" gasped Fox, with a worried glance at the blue vixen. "What do you mean by that?"

Falco turned his fiery gaze to the stunned vulpine, stared at him for a couple seconds, and merely said with a twisted smile, "You'll soon find out McCloud." Then he turned to the Earthwalkers behind him, and shouted: "Ted'k melo idcojj A semmudt 0ei ke te je!", and the Earthwalkers said in one clear voice: "0oj, jah!"

Fox was taken by surprise. Since when could Falco speak Saurian fluently? Then, slapping himself on the forehead for forgetting, he remembered that Falco was possessed by a Krezoa Spirit, so the Krezoa is the one speaking the dinosaur language.

Just then, a pale red light beam flew by Falco's head, missing him by a few inches. Fox and Krystal looked behind them speedily. Slippy was laying across Krystal's Arwing, aiming his sniper at Falco. His rifle was smoking at the tip.

Krystal raised an eyebrow at him. Slippy snapped his fingers, and ducked back into Krystal's Arwing. A few seconds later, he came out with a demon sniper rifle, and took aim at Falco again.

"...Just a little more to the left..." muttered Slippy's voice off of the communicators; Krystal's jaw dropped, and she cried out, "_SLIPPY! DON'T DO IT! THAT THING IS TOO POWERFUL! IT'S MEANT TO BE USED ON VEHICLES ONLY! NOT-" _she was cut off by sensing Slippy pulling the trigger, despite of Krystal's rather late warning.

"_What a fool..."_ she thought to herself, and she shortened her staff.

_  
_For whatever reason, Fox heard Krystal's warning as well; it seemed that she was so alarmed that she failed to block her thought from his mind.

Slippy's shot flew between Fox and Krystal, heading straight for Falco; the avian had a wide, evil grin his face. He raised a wing, and deflected the shot towards Krystal.

Fox didn't even have enough time to say anything. During the couple seconds which the beam was flying towards Krystal, only two thoughts crossed Fox's mind: he had NO idea how Falco was able to even touch the beam without getting a mark on his wing, and that if Krystal got hit by the beam, she would obviously be killed instantly, and she would sent soaring backwards several hundred yards, yet, she didn't seem as concerned as Fox did.

Krystal had placed the staff back on her belt, and her paws were a blur as she made several dozen handsigns within a few seconds. Before the sniper shot hit her, Krystal raised her paws up, and _caught _the beam with a loud grunt; the plates of tile on which she was standing on cracked when the shot made contact. The beam collected into a ball of bright energy in her paws, and Krystal started getting pushed backwards, tile cracking when her feet pressed over them.

The others' eyes widened in surprise as Krystal's fur and tail rose to the sky, like there was a static current in the air, pulling her fur upwards, and small bolts of light blue lightning started crackling around her. She had a grim concentrated expression on her face, almost like a grimace. After a few seconds, the ball caused the fur on her paws to combust. She winced in pain as the beam started to burn her skin once it had burned through her fur.

"_I've had enough of this._" thought Krystal, and, with a yell, she sent the shining ball soaring skyward.

Fox and Slippy were speechless.

Falco started clapping as Krystal crouched down quickly and placed her paws in the blood covering the tile to extinguish the flames. "Very, very impressive, vixen. I can tell your father made a very good choice for the purpose of your life..."

Krystal looked up, eyes narrowed angrily, and paws soaked in blood. "Don't you ever...talk about my father...in front of me..." She snarled; she took her staff off of her belt in blinding speed, and before Fox or Slippy could react, she charged at Falco.

"SXUHWO!" yelled Krystal; her staff glowed a dark orange, and tiny sparks flew off of the tip of her staff. Fox quickly took out his translator, to find out what she said, but it was off, and didn't record anything. With an angry jab, he turned on the translator just when Krystal yelled, "0EI'HO TOUT!"

"_YOU'RE DEAD!" _shouted Krystal's voice off of the translator. Fox, with a gasp, looked down at the translator and back up at Krystal, who was about to take an almighty swing at Falco's head.

"Krystal, DON'T! FALCO IS STILL IN THERE! THERE'S STILL A CHANCE TO SAVE HIM!" shouted Fox, but it was too late.

Krystal swung her staff like a baseball bat; it had the appearance as if it was bending in the air with the speed that Krystal was swinging it. Falco continued to smile as Krystal's staff neared his head; it hit on his left side with a dull 'thunk'. He didn't blink, wince, grunt, anything; his head didn't even move.

"What-?" spluttered Krystal, and before she could pull her staff back, Falco had dropped one machine gun, took hold of her neck, and lifted her off of the ground. Krystal gasped in shock and for air, and she dropped her staff, then started to slap Falco's wing feebly.

"Krystal!" yelled Fox, and he lunged forward, charging his blasters again. A beam of light flew past his head and hit Falco squarely on the forehead. Caught off guard, Falco recoiled backwards, giving Fox an opening, who was somewhat surprised that Falco wasn't blasted backwards from the demon sniper beam. He pointed both of his blasters at Falco's gut, and fired the fully charged shots. They combined in the air, and hit Falco's midsection as a single, powerful shot. But this did nothing, and the next moment afterwards, Falco threw Krystal up onto the ramp; she rolled out of site.

"Why you...!" muttered Fox, and, placing his blasters back on his belt, attempted to punch Falco in the jaw. The red avian simply caught Fox's fist, and threw him onto the ramp. Fox tried to stand back up, but a copper boot hit him on the back, and forced him back on the ground. Fox coughed up some blood as he hit the tile.

Falco picked one blaster off of Fox's belt, pointed it at Fox's head, and started charging it. "Good night, McCloud..."

"Fox!" yelled Slippy, and he shot at Falco again; the avian effortlessly deflected it back towards the Arwing; Slippy screamed and ducked back in Krystal's Arwing. The demon shot hit the Arwing's side, and it promptly blew up, knocking Slippy unconscious, and sending him flying through the air. The toad's limp body landed awkwardly three hundred feet away from the Arwings.

"...Slippy..." groaned Fox, and he reached out with one paw in Slippy's direction. Falco stomped hard on Fox's forearm, causing Fox to yell in pain. He felt a heated blaster nozzle rest against his head.

"Sweet dreams..." said Falco softly in Fox's ear. Fox closed his eyes and prepared for the painful shot entering his skull. He then heard a small 'thunk', followed by Falco grunting, which was cut off by something that sounded close to a small explosion.

Falco let out a painful groan, and the Earthwalkers moaned slightly. Fox kept his eyes shut, thinking it was a trick, and waited for the blast, but it never came. Furthermore, Falco's pressure on his back loosened, and Fox felt something lightly hit him on the back. Fox opened his eyes slowly and turned his head around. Falco's beak was slightly open, and his eyes were glazed over; he had also dropped the blaster. Fox took this chance and pushed himself away from under the possessed avian; he rolled all the way down the ramp.

At the foot of the ramp, Fox picked himself up off of the ground, and looked back at Falco. It looked like nothing was wrong with him, besides the fact that he was possessed, so Fox couldn't understand why Falco let him escape. He walked halfway off of the ramp, then heard a faint voice come from behind the motionless avian.

"Uccen mo ke kubo unu0 nxuk xuj rood idnaccadwc0 walod."

"...Krystal!"

Fox ran up the rest of ramp, and took a look behind Falco; he let out a yell, and jumped backwards, nearly falling off of the ramp. Krystal was standing behind Falco, in a fighting stance, with her left fist clenched around her glowing staff, and her right paw was inserted into Falco's back. A blue circle enclosed the area in which Krystal's paw had entered Falco's back, and upon closer examination, Fox noticed that her paw, if she tired, would be able to touch his heart. Fox looked at Krystal's face. She was breathing heavily, her shoulders rising and falling with each breath. Fox couldn't see her eyes; her long bangs were covering them completely.

The vixen's right arm twitched, and a second later, she pulled her paw out of Falco's back, who screamed in extreme agony. Fox, for a brief moment, thought that Krystal had pulled out his heart. What Krystal had pulled out, however, was the Krezoa Spirit, by the hairs sprouting from the back of it's head. It didn't move in her paw, nor did it try to fly away; it seemed that, in some unknown way, Krystal had "killed" the Krezoa. The Earthwalkers stared up at the limp form of the Spirit, many growling, others roaring fiercely. Krystal threw the Krezoa head up the ramp, and when it hit the ground, it disappeared. She raised her right paw to the sky, and shouted "Ammeracaqo!". All of the possessed Earthwalkers froze in place, eliminating the threat of them charging at Fox and Krystal.

"How did you...?" muttered Fox, poking Krystal's shoulder.

Without looking up, Krystal replied, "I helped the vixen do so."

Fox let out a shout of surprise, and he took several hurried steps down the ramp to back away from Krystal. Her voice wasn't the way it was before; it had an eerie tone to it, and it was echoing, just like the way it was in Fox's dream back in the Arwing. He took his remaining blaster off of his belt and pointed it at Krystal, his arm shaking slightly.

Krystal smirked, then placed both paws on a now unconscious Falco's shoulders, and laying him down on the ground. She then straightened back up, and turned to Fox, who was steadily losing grip on his blaster.

"Who-what are you? You can't be Krystal! WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?" he yelled.

Krystal's smirk widened to a smile, and she looked up, her bangs lifting above her eyes. Fox gasped, and dropped his blaster in astonishment. Her eyes were now glowing a light purple, and her pupils, which were glowing a deeper purple, widened as they set focus on Fox's shivering body.

"I am the eldest of the Krazoa Spirits. I am the leader and overseer of all Krazoa Spirits. I, am known as Krazina."

As she spoke, a faint outline started to come into view over Krystal's left shoulder. At first Fox couldn't tell what it was, and he squinted at it. Then the outline became more prominent, giving it a shape of a Krazoa head. Then, as it became more defined, Fox saw that it had several different features than that of a normal Krazoa. It had clearly outlined pupils in it's eyes, it's "beard" curled up at the end, and it's hairs curled together.

"_That image must be Krazina..."_ thought Fox. _"And she must be using Krystal in order to speak..."_

"I am glad that I was able to assist you in destroying one of my brother's minions." said Krystal; the Krazoa head's mouth moved in sync with Krystal's as she spoke. "They have brought terror and war to this planet, destroying what the citizens have worked so hard and long to build. They've turned many of the dinosaur tribes into savage, out of control monsters. Each one of the tribes, regardless of former friendships and alliances, have battled each other for no particular reason except just to do it. They find joy of killing others, and have no remorse for what they do to the planet to achieve that pleasure, and Sauria is slowly dieing because of it. They've blocked waterfalls that provide vital nutrients to the many plants of Sauria; many have died and withered away, leaving Sauria with an appearance of a wasteland. They have, with the sacrifices of some dinosaurs, angered the volcanoes so they erupt, charing the planet's crust, and destroying it's atmosphere. The Spellstones have been overloaded with evil energy, and they are unable to keep the planet stable, and most of the Krazoa Spirits have been driven out into oblivion, tearing this planet apart."

Fox was silent for a while as he let what Krazina told him sink in.

"Is there a greater purpose for the Krezoa's rampage?" asked Fox; he was now trying to speak like he was speaking to a queen, because it felt like Krazina was one. "To say, what are they trying to achieve?"

"They are attempting to resurrect my brother, Krezonate."

"And why is that significant?"

"He is the only Krezoa that is able to move from planet to planet, as I am the only Krazoa to do the same. If he is resurrected, he can then take his minions and conquer other planets, such as your Corneria."

Fox thought for a second. "What can be done to stop them?"

"Deep within Krazoa Palace, is a crystal. This crystal contains the soul of my mother, who was the one that killed my brother just when he was attempting to take control of Sauria, many, many millennia ago. If you take this crystal and put it in the crystalline cage in which this vixen was trapped in a year and a half ago, it's energy will disintegrate all of the Krezoa all over Sauria and it's new moons."

Fox nodded, and he picked up his blaster. When he stood back up, his eyes found Falco's motionless body...

"_..."YOU ARE OURS, VIXEN!"..."Well? What are you going to do now, vixen? If you don't attack now, I'll take you away."..."Very, very impressive, vixen. I can tell your father made a very good choice for the purpose of your life..._"

"I...I have one question...a question regarding Krystal." he said faintly.

Krystal's and Krazina's head tilted upwards simultaneously.

"Earlier...when we battled T-Tricky," Fox's voice cracked when he said the Earthwalker's name, "and Falco...when they were possessed...they said stuff like "You are ours, vixen", and "I can tell your father made a very good choice for the purpose of your life"...What did they mean by that?"

For the first time, Krazina hesitated with her answer. "This vixen is what the Krezoa have been looking for since you saved Sauria from the Apariods. They need her to bring Krezonate back to life...They need to..." Krystal and Krazina looked away from Fox.

"What? What do they need to do with her?" asked Fox quickly.

"It's...violent...they need to...they need to cut off...cut off her head, and use it as the embodiment of my brother after his resurrection."

After Krazina finished speaking, one of Krystal's eyes, her right one, turned back to it's normal turquoise color; it was filling with tears, rapidly.

"They-they need to c-cut off...my head?!" gasped Krystal in her normal voice; Krazina's mouth didn't move as the sobbing vixen spoke.

Fox had fallen to his knees when Krazina had finished as well. He couldn't even say anything; he just blankly stared at the ramp, with his mouth half-open.

"But why me?" asked Krystal to the ground.

Krazina looked at Krystal. "It's because of a deal. A deal that your...father made with my brother before he and Krezonate died." said Krystal; she was being used as Krazina's speaking tool again. "Keep this in mind: they were good friends, though I don't know how they managed to obtain such a friendship."

"Three years before you were born, Krystal, Krezonate came to Cerinia to ask your father something. Back then, Krezonate took a form of a demonic wolf, so he was able to physically talk to your father, without possessing him and asking him with thoughts. Due to their close friendship, Krezonate felt that he could trust your father. He asked your father, if he were to die before he accomplished his goal, if his minions could use his offspring, which is you, to revive him. Your father happily agreed..."

For some odd reason, Krystal's eye was now blazing with excitement; Fox couldn't understand why.

"I have one question Krazina." said Krystal. "When they...when they attempt to cut off my...head...do I have to be possessed at the time?"

"Yes." said Krazina off of Krystal again.

"And that is the _only_ way that the resurrection will be successful? To sacrifice me when I'm possessed?"

"Yes."

Through his numb disbelief, Fox found it odd to hear two different voices coming from Krystal's mouth; it sounded like she was talking to herself.

"Ok. Then all I have to do is watch my back, and don't allow myself to be possessed."

"Good luck with that." said a voice behind Fox.

Fox turned around quickly, already knowing who it was. Slippy was standing ten feet from the foot of the ramp, holding a blackened demon sniper with one arm, pointed at Fox. His eyes were glowing red.

"_Damnit Slippy...you shouldn't have gone back into that Arwing when Falco deflected that beam...you should have known that the shot would destroy the Arwing...and now look at what happened..._" thought Fox, as he pointed his blaster at the toad.

Krystal's left eye and Krazina's eyes narrowed at the possessed Slippy; Krystal's right eye was filled with shock. "When will you ever understand that just about every being in this universe doesn't like war?" asked Krazina.

"Hmph...that will change once we bring back Krezonate, Krazina." said Slippy, pointing the rifle at Fox's head. "Now...to get rid of this vulpine before he causes anymore trouble." and before Fox could even fire the simplest blaster shot, Slippy pulled the trigger.

What ever happened next, Fox never knew. The next thing that he knew that he was on his butt, sitting on the ramp, looking up at Krystal, who had her back to him. The back of her left blood-soaked paw was smoking...Fox assumed that she had done something with the rifle shot, just like she did earlier, but she caught it last time. Fox looked to his left; he saw a pale beam disappearing into the storm. Fox then realized that Krystal had jumped out in front of him, and deflected the shot with the back of her paw.

"_How did she...?_" thought Fox.

Krystal turned her head and looked down at Fox, who gasped. Both of her eyes were glowing a very deep violet, and her pupils were the darkest purple that Fox has ever seen; Krazina must have completely entered Krystal's body.

"_Fox..._" her echoing voice sounded in his blank mind; he could hear "Fox" echoing several times over. "_Are you ok?_"

Fox nodded slowly, and he continued to stare into her glowing eyes. He felt like all of his troubles had gone away...

Fox zoned out for a bit, and thirty seconds later, he realized that Slippy was speaking to Krystal.

"...showed compassion to those that need to die Krazina. Now move."

"No." said Krystal simply. The word "no" echoed about seven times before she spoke again. "I will not allow you to use her."

"We need that vixen!" yelled Slippy. "Now get out of her body!"

"I will not." muttered Krystal.

"Fine. Then that fox will die now." and he jumped into the air, directly above Fox, aiming the demon sniper at his head.

Fox looked up, let out a yelp, and tried to crawl away from Slippy's aim, but it wasn't working. Krystal did a back flip into the air, flying backwards to get under Slippy. Slippy fired his shot, but Krystal deflected it back to him; the shot hit him in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. Krystal then lunged forward and inserted her paw into Slippy's chest. The toad let out a high-pitched scream, and a second later Krystal pulled the Krezoa out of Slippy just like she did with Falco; she threw it to the ground, and it disappeared as well.

Slippy plummeted to the ground, and hit the tile with a loud thud, followed by a crack. Fox winced as the snapping noised echoed through the air. He took a look Slippy; his arm was bent in a way it shouldn't be.

Krystal landed gracefully next to Fox, who was standing up slowly.

"...His arm is broken..." said Fox faintly.

"I know...I'm sorry I didn't catch him. I didn't have enough time after I disposed of the Krezoa." said Krystal.

"Is there anything you can do?" asked Fox wearily.

"I can't heal his arm. I can, however, teleport him back to your Corneria, where he can get medical help." said Krystal.

"...Do that." muttered Fox.

Krystal nodded and walked over to Slippy. She placed her paw over his forehead, and her paw glowed a light purple. A second later that same light purple light encircled Slippy, and he rose off of the ground. When three feet off of the ground, Krystal made a slashing movement in the air with her paw, and Slippy vanished.

Fox sighed. He was glad that Slippy was safe back on Corneria, out of the line of fire. With a smirk, he realized that if Slippy had the brains to do so, he could ask Pepper for the reinforcements once he is fit enough, and they could intercept Peppy when the Cornerian army were coming to Sauria.

Fox heard a moan behind him. Turning around quickly, he saw that Falco had regained consciousness, and was sitting up.

"What...what happened?" he asked in his original voice. His feathers had turned back to their blue color, and his uniformed turned back to it's original state, except the shoulder pads; they remained as spikes.

"You ok man?" as Fox as he held out a paw to help the avian onto his feet.

"Yeah...I think so...I just don't remember anything...all I remember was that Tricky was running at Krystal...what happened then?"

Fox's eyes darkened. "You got hit by a bolt of lightning. You're lucky to be alive."

Falco smirked.

"Krystal killed Tricky's body. The Tricky we knew was already dead." Fox added when Falco looked up at him swiftly with an alarmed look. "She just killed the vessel that the Krezoa was using."

Falco continued to gaze up at him. "Then what?"

"Just to sum it up, you were possessed by a Krezoa, and you were trying to kill me and Slippy, while saying that you were going to kidnap Krystal. Don't worry now," he said as Falco jumped to his feet. "Krystal got rid of the Spirit."

A look of relief and confusion crossed over Falco's face. "How did she do that?"

"I helped her." said another voice at the bottom of the ramp again.

Falco looked down quickly, while Fox turned his head more slowly. Krystal was standing a few feet from the ramp, gazing up at Falco.

"Krystal? What do mean by, 'I helped her'" asked Falco, completely confused.

"Oh..." muttered Krystal. "I forgot that you were unconscious. I am Krazina. I'm in control of this vixen for the time being."

"Krazina...?"

"She's the oldest of the Krazoa Spirits Falco. She is the one that allowed Krystal to destroy the Krezoa that possessed you and Slippy." said Fox.

"Slippy? He got possessed as well?"

"...Yeah, but Krazina quickly eliminated that Krezoa, but Slippy's arm broke in the process, so Krazina teleported him back to Corneria."

"I see...so what are we going to do now? I mean, what action are we going to take to kill all of these Krezoa?" asked Falco with a glance at the immobilized Earthwalkers.

"Well..." began Fox.

"We'll talk about it on the way." interrupted Krystal. "I can't keep these dinosaurs still for much longer. We need to get into the Palace."

"Right...but our ammo is low. We need to get new weapons out of the Arwings." said Fox with a step in the Arwing's direction.

"I'll get them." said Krystal. "Which ones do you need?"

"A sniper rifle and two machine guns. Those other ones are toast." said Falco looking at his former weapons floating in blood.

"A homing launcher and two more blasters." said Fox, tossing his old one, which was out of ammo completely, at an Earthwalker.

Krystal nodded, stood still for a second or two, and snapped her fingers. Three blasters, two machine guns, a homing launcher, a sniper rifle, and a gatling gun hovered out of the Arwings, and flew towards Fox, Falco and Krystal.

Fox and Falco had a dumbfounded look on their faces as they watched the weapons fly towards them.

Krystal laughed at them. "I have more advanced telekinetic abilities than this vixen." she said as she grabbed a blaster and a gatling gun as they flew by her.

Fox caught the remaining blasters and the homing launcher; as soon as he caught it, Fox hooked the launcher to his back. Falco caught his machine guns and put the rifle on his back as did Fox with the launcher.

"All right." said Krystal; she had her staff on her belt, she was holding her blaster with both paws and the gatling gun was hooked to her back as well. "Lets find that crystal."

**Note: Aren't you glad that the ending of this chapter wasn't 'one hell of a cliffhanger'? Like I said, Chapter 10 coming...whenever I finish it (maybe after the holidays)!**


End file.
